The Wake of a Storm
by i'm a quitter
Summary: When Logan and Ororo's three year old daughter is kidnapped, the anxious parents have to draw strength from each other to keep from drowning in their panic. Sequel to 'The Trouble with Weather'.
1. Prologue

**So I'm finally back! I'm sure you're thinking, "took you long enough!" Well, I have been hard at work writing (when I wasn't banging my head against the wall from the downright vicious bouts of writer's block) and I have been trying to get this story to be just perfect. But my lovely beta SuniGyrl as well as my grand reader dsauer have more or less made me realize that I'll be at it forever and ever amen if I wait that long before posting. So here's hoping that posting (and some encouraging reviews?) will be my motivation to crank these chapters out so you can have a sequel sometime before the end of this millennium.**

**Since I'm going to be starting classes and work soon, these updates aren't going to be quite as frequent as they were for the last story. But, I'm also pretty confident (97%) that this story won't go on for eighteen months like the last one. Anyway, just fair warning that updates will be roughly every two weeks. Since I already have the first fourteen or so chapters pretty well planned out, updates might come earlier than that. If, however, two weeks goes by without so much as an excuse as to why I haven't posted, feel free to sharpen the pitchforks and prepare to put my email on blast!**

**This story is a sequel to my rewritten version of the X-Men trilogy, "The Trouble with Weather". I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that you HAVE to read that story (all 98 chapters!) before this one, but there are probably some things that will make much more sense if you read that first.**

**This story picks up about six months after the epilogue of TTWW. ****Obviously I don't own X-Men at all, or else I wouldn't have to rearrange the characters the way *I* want them...**

**Thank you to my patient beta SuniGyrl, and enjoy!**

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><p><strong>Prologue<strong>

Reclining on the couch, Logan watched Ororo rub lazy circles over her swollen stomach, her expression mildly thoughtful. If he was being perfectly honest with himself, in the back of his mind he'd expected Ororo to be a bit more self-conscious about the fact that she was steadily getting larger, and would continue to do so for the next four months. But, happily, she didn't seem the least bit put off by the baby bump she was sporting.

It could have something to do with the fact that Emma was three months farther along in her pregnancy and was thus three months _larger_ than Ororo, but Logan kept those thoughts to himself as best he could. Ororo respected his privacy well enough, but the blonde was just _looking_ for a reason to lash out.

On this day, of all days, Logan didn't want to get her riled up. All of the X-Men were enjoying a rare day of complete and total calm. The students had the day off and were being surprisingly well behaved in not causing any trouble that needed to be reprimanded by an adult. None of the teachers had any pressing papers that needed their undivided attention, nor were there any missions that needed completing or even events that they needed to keep an eye out for. There were no prank wars that needed refereeing, no rivalries that needed breaking up, no heated lover's spats that needed mediating... Each and every one of the adults was free to do whatever they wanted, at least for the day.

So many months ago, the inactivity might have made Logan a tad stir crazy. However, in the months following the incident on Alcatraz, Logan had grown accustomed to such quiet days. Luckily, days like this weren't so often as to grate badly on his nerves and he even welcomed the calm on occasion. Logan still liked the noise and chaos of action - craved it even - but, every once in a blue moon, it was nice to have absolutely nothing that he needed to do.

It was rainy outside (Ororo insisted that it wasn't her doing, though no one complained because, either way, it was likely the reason for the children's obedience) and it was a Wednesday in the middle of summer. Though there were a few children outside, most of the occupants of the mansion were doing one thing or another indoors. The X-Men happened to be occupying their time in the living room that was adjoined to the office that Ororo and Emma shared.

The couch that Logan and Ororo were sitting on was big enough to seat four adults – maybe even five, in a pinch. But even though Logan sat on the far left and Ororo was comfortably leaned against his chest, Remy was draped across the other side in a way that made it impossible for anyone else to sit without sitting on his lap.

Remembering the way that Marie had promised to join them on the couch after she finished the book she was looking through, Logan figured Remy was draped like that on purpose.

"How about Matthew?" Ororo suggested, pulling Logan's thoughts away from plots to kick the Cajun off the couch without jostling the woman leaned against him. Logan made a face at her and she rolled her eyes in a gesture that probably summed up her thoughts quite nicely: _How many names are you going to turn down?_ "What's wrong with Matthew?" she asked tiredly. "More to the point, what's wrong with any of the names I've rattled off? That face you make is cute, but I don't want it stuck that way."

He gave her a level look, deciding to lead with neither the correction that he was not cute (... _handsome, damn it!_), nor that he hadn't been paying attention to the other names that she'd rattled off and thus didn't know what was wrong with them. Emma gave a poorly concealed snort that Logan pointedly ignored. "I appreciate the thought that you're putting into these names," he said truthfully as he reached out and covered the hand that was resting on her stomach with his own. He felt a light flutter of movement beneath his hand and for a moment forgot what he had been about to say as he flattened his palm fully against her stomach to better feel his child's kicking. After a moment the movement ceased and he continued in a light tone, "But we are not naming my _daughter_ Matthew. What will the other kids say?"

Ororo gave him a sour look as she sat up straight and swatted away the arm that had been wrapped around her shoulders, as though swatting away a fly. Happily, she did nothing about the hand that was still rested on her stomach, though she did move her hand away from his, perhaps to prove how thoroughly annoyed she was. They had, after all, had this discussion too many times. "Matthew is a perfectly acceptable name for _my son_, thank you."

"Ya'll got no idea how _annoyin_ ya'll is," Remy chided. He hadn't moved from his position, though it was clear that one of his knees was now digging into Ororo's hip. She lightly brushed her fingers across his calf and Remy jerked his leg away as though he'd been burned. Or perhaps frozen. Electrocuted? Any possibility was as likely as the next. He shot Ororo a scandalized look as he grumbled, "Why don't ya'll compromise so Gambit can finish watching his stories in peace?"

Peter, who was boredly playing a handheld video game in the nearby armchair, looked up at Remy with a skeptical expression. "You mean _you_ turned this crap on?" he demanded. "I could have been watching UFC all this time?" When Remy darkly eyed the Russian's handheld and it started to shake on it's own, Peter clutched it protectively to himself. "Can you blame me for thinking Ororo turned this on?" he said hastily. "It sure as hell wasn't _Logan._"

"Or we probably _would_ be watching UFC," Logan muttered flatly.

"Don't hate," the Cajun responded coolly, his posture perfectly at ease in an instant. "'The Bold and the Beautiful' may be more to Gambit's tastes, but he'll settle for 'Passions'."

"Why is _that_ not surprising?" Bobby intoned from his spot on the floor, not bothering to look up from the notebook he was likely sketching elaborate pranks in. Months ago a comment like that would've sparked an immediate argument, if not an actual fight, between the two. Now Remy merely shrugged indifferently.

When Marie had finally made her preference to Remy crystal clear, the two men had cooled off and they were now on much better terms, though no one in the house could say that they were friends quite yet. Marie and Remy enjoyed each others company in plain view while Bobby made no effort to hide his interest in a green haired student by the name of Lorna Dane. Logan wasn't sure how Marie felt about Lorna or Bobby's obvious interest in her, but he decided that she was old enough to handle a problem like that on her own.

Logan didn't once bother keeping track of who was dating whom at the school, mostly because it made him dizzy even when he _wasn't_ paying attention. He only cared that everyone was getting along so that he didn't have hordes of female students breaking down his door. Somehow he'd been labeled as caring, patient, and sympathetic to _every little problem_ that the girls seemed to face in their adolescence. If he ever got his hands on the fool that started those damn 'cookies and compassion' rumors...

Noting Emma's wild giggling with disdain and a hint of suspicion, Logan cut off that line of thought. "Compromise is too easy," he muttered to himself, which earned him an elbow to the ribs from the beauty sitting next to him. It didn't hurt in the slightest, though the sharp kick of agreement from inside her stomach that accompanied it stung his chest a little.

But that couldn't be right. _It was obviously indigestion,_ he told himself, giving Ororo a harassed look nonetheless.

Ignoring him completely, she turned to Remy. "What did you have in mind?"

"Ya'll shuttin up," he muttered flatly without breaking eye contact with the TV. Ororo scowled and reached over, hitting him too. He rubbed at his arm absently and moved as far away from her as the couch allowed. "Hope you ain't gonna show love to your baby like this," he grumbled.

Marie – who appeared to have abandoned her book and was now idly correcting papers with Kitty at the table behind them – scoffed. "Maybe you wouldn't get injured if you actually offered _real_ help, swamp rat," she said.

Remy seemed ready with a sharp reply, but Ororo spoke over him. "How about Tiara Rose?"

Everything in the room grew ominously still as Logan slowly turned to Ororo, blinking at her in horror. She wasn't... serious? Did she already hate the child? "… the fuck kind of name is _that_?" he demanded. The breathy reach-out-and-embrace-the-aura-of-the-universe tone made his stomach churn. He knew her well enough to know that it didn't appeal to her! Or he _thought_ he'd known…

The laughter she tried to contain at the look on his face relaxed him immensely. She hadn't been serious. They would've had some _real_ problems that needed addressing if she _had_ been serious. "I've yet to hear a single suggestion from you," Ororo finally said. "You haven't said anything beyond wanting a girl. Can you blame me for not knowing exactly what your tastes are?"

Logan crossed his arms and remained silent. So she knew he'd been dodging the subject of names. Not really surprising, but he still felt a bit embarrassed at being called on it. For some reason he just couldn't shake the feeling that the names he liked wouldn't be on par with what she liked. He wasn't sure as to the reason behind it, but the modern names that had become so popular – and that she seemed to prefer, he'd noticed – weren't as attractive to him as old fashioned names. Compared to the other names that she'd hinted at liking (Foster, Colton...) Matthew was actually an okay name, but…

Logan didn't _want_ a boy! Besides, Ororo wanted a boy so badly that he had to assume she had any names that he'd like covered. He, on the other hand, had several ideas for girl's names, but he didn't feel like being shot down by everyone in the room. In a world where it was acceptable to name your child Peaches or Story or Mosaic, a nice name like Emily would probably merit getting ridiculed by other kids.

Ororo lightly strummed her fingers on her swollen stomach. "Well? Can you give me one?"

Logan gave her a haughty expression. She knew he wouldn't back down from an outright challenge. "Caroline."

Ororo stared at him blankly. Clearly she hadn't expected that.

"Or Annabelle," he tried.

"…"

"Lillian?"

"…"

Logan scowled and put a few inches of space between them on the couch. It wasn't much, but it soothed his ego. "Try to keep down your applause," he said sourly.

Ororo and Emma, who had thus far made no comment, both threw their heads back and let out high pitched peels of laughter, for much longer than Logan felt necessary. Were he the type to blush, his cheeks would've undoubtedly been crimson with embarrassment. But Logan _wasn't_ the type, and merely kicked his sarcasm up a notch. "I didn't exactly dig through the latest edition of 'World's Greatest Baby Names'…"

Ororo shook her head, still giggling madly, his tone completely ineffective on her. "They're nice names," she managed to gasp. "They really are. I'm laughing because you don't even _know_ if it's a girl or not, but it's already got you wrapped around its little finger."

Logan would've blushed deeper...

... if he was the type.

"Oh, he'll cave in to the brat's every command whether it's a girl or not," Emma put in, her laugh not quite as warm as Ororo's had been. Then again, everything about Emma was a bit more frigid; her name wasn't Frost for nothing.

While Ororo's response to pregnancy had been a quickly exhausted rage and generally a more laid back disposition, Emma's personality had all but dropped the temperature in the mansion. Her mood swings, while admittedly not as often as Ororo's, lasted much longer and were every bit as intense. That, and the appearance that she despised her unborn daughter already, had put everyone in the mansion ill at ease for months. Finding out that it was the lack of control with her powers that Emma despised had made Logan pay close enough attention to notice that Emma adored her baby every bit as much as Logan and Ororo loved their child.

But he still wanted a girl.

"I think you should just find out the gender and get it over with," Emma continued, seemingly reading Logan's thoughts. (_Tactless, as usual,_ he thought, hoping she heard _that_.) "That way you can stop bickering about the child being a mama's boy or daddy's little girl and decide what it is that you actually want to call the little horror."

Her sharp tone was at odds with the way she gently rubbed her own (much larger) stomach, but Logan knew from experience that she was a bit annoyed with this particular topic. After all, if not for the fact that Ororo was using her hyper-active powers to shield the gender of their child, Emma would have spread it all over New York already.

"Some of us like to be surprised," Ororo told her evenly. "I'm sure _you'd_ like to know what it is, but I won't let you ruin it for the rest of us. And don't call my child a horror or I'll make sure to increase the volume of _my_ thoughts."

The blonde shuddered, knowing precisely what Ororo meant by that; she'd told both Logan and Ororo, on several occasions, that they ought to practice blocking their thoughts while in bed so they wouldn't instigate an orgy amongst the telepaths and empaths in the mansion. Logan knew better, and it appeared that Ororo did too; Emma just didn't like listening to their… creativity… without the added bonus of being able to tell any and everyone. Being in possession of such gossip and being unable to spread it since they lived in a house of teenagers infuriated Emma like nothing else. He was honestly surprised that she hadn't gone to the press...

"What other names do you have in mind?" Logan quickly asked Ororo, cutting Emma off from what looked to be a nasty reply. "And if you say Cloud Flower or Trickle Rain, this relationship is over." This got more hysterical giggles from Ororo and even a half snort from Emma, who looked to be mentally tallying the score before dropping the issue.

Ororo shrugged. "I've told you what I like. Names like Graham, I guess. Or Avery. Maybe Peyton."

Logan rolled his eyes. He'd heard all those names before, and he was getting exhausted with them. "_Girl_ names," he insisted.

Ororo lifted a brow in challenge. "_Boy_ names," she shot back.

"Why don't we help?" Bobby offered impatiently. "Do you like Alice?"

"Vladimir is a strong name," Peter said, hopping on the band wagon.

"You know Charlotte got a good ring to it," Remy countered.

"How about Jason," Marie tried.

"Cecelia is nice," Kitty chimed.

"Ryan."

"Anya."

"Bernard."

"Lauren."

"Mortimer."

There was a collective pause as everyone turned around to look at who had suggested _that_. Kitty huffed and ducked her head down to continue correcting papers, but not before everyone good a look at the red that suddenly stained her cheeks. "Well, ex-_cuse_ me for trying to help! I thought Logan was going for the old fashioned names."

"I have an idea!" Kurt declared excitedly, _right_ in Logan's ear. The Canadian nearly jumped out of his skin and scowled at the blue mutant, who had been standing a few feet away from Kitty only moments ago. Kurt graced him with a wide grin in return. Thankfully Kurt had come back to the mansion along with Remy seven months ago, but hadn't yet rejoined the X-Men as a fighter. But, even if he was only a teacher, Logan was certainly glad – if only in the very back of his mind – that Kurt was back. Kitty had been moping around for far too long during his absence, and Ororo had been in need of a friend as optimistic as Kurt.

But his time at the Massachusetts Academy had turned him into a bit of a prankster. He was constantly sneaking up on someone, constantly popping up out of nowhere and scaring the ever-living out of people…

Usually Logan. He'd grudgingly admit that his quick temper probably made him a fun target, but that didn't stop him from wanting to throw down with the fool for some of his tricks. Logan never would've guessed it, but Kurt was quite stealthy with his teleportation and shadow jumping when he wanted to be; not so much as a quiet _bamf_ or a whiff of sulfur.

Didn't mean he had to congratulate the fiend on a job well done. "Was that necessary, elf," Logan snarled, hoping that his voice didn't betray his still-pounding heart. The dry looks that Emma, Ororo and Remy sent his way assured him that he hadn't fooled anybody.

"Logan wants a girl and Ororo wants a boy," Kurt said, brushing off the nickname and Logan's tone without so much as a batted eye. "If it is ein Mädchen, then Logan gets what he wanted, so why not let Ororo name her? If it is ein Junge, Ororo has gotten what she wants, so Logan can name him. That is an acceptable compromise, ja?"

His indignation behind him, Logan turned that over in his mind. He could live with that, couldn't he? He trusted Ororo's judgment and knew that she wouldn't give their daughter an outrageous name like Tangerine Dream. And he hoped she didn't think he'd give their son some caveman name like… Og.

_Although_, he thought, _in the event that it is a boy, I may have to come up with a name less predictable than Hunter._ But that really didn't matter much. Ororo had given him plenty of boys names to think on, and he was sure he could come up with something if that time came.

And, in his gut, he _knew_ it was a girl, so either way it really didn't matter. Kurt's suggestion seemed like a fair trade. "Okay."

Ororo gave him a Look. "Just like that? I don't get any say in this?"

Logan shrugged. "You haven't said anything yet. What would you like to say?"

She pointed at her swollen stomach. "Who's carrying the baby," she demanded.

"Oh, you want to go that route?" Logan matched her defiant stare without fear. "Who put it in there?" he countered.

"Lord, have mercy," Marie muttered as she grabbed her papers and left the room.

"That's easy for you to say," Ororo snapped. "You don't suffer the pain nine months later! It was _fun_ for you!"

"And there's _my_ cue to exit," Bobby declared, following after Marie.

"I didn't hear any complaining!" Logan hissed, his voice steadily rising.

Kitty got up and straightened her clothes as she walked out, simply shaking her head and giggling under her breath. Following her lead, Kurt left with her.

"Could you hear _anything_ over the sound of your own wolf howls?" Ororo screeched back.

"I'm off like a prom dress," Peter muttered as he left too.

"You know what?" Logan bit back his candid reply and shook his head. Reaching out to take her hand, he lowered his voice and checked his tone. "Darling," he said politely, "I can't talk to you when you're like this. Can I get you something to eat? You're breathing heavy as hell, you must be hungry…"

She snatched her hand away with a harassed look, and for a moment it seemed that she was weighing the pros and cons of throwing him off the couch. "Don't touch me! Forget it! I can get my own food!"

Well, food was certainly on her mind if she forgot what they'd been arguing about so easily. Logan scoffed and looked at the TV, pretending to be suddenly interested that Ivy was scolding Ethan for cheating on Gwen with Theresa. "Not in the half hour it'll take you to _pour_ yourself off the couch, waddle into the kitchen, adjust your pa– "

Ororo stopped him right there. "You know," she commented drily, "once upon a time, I would've thrown you halfway to the moon for a crack like that." He caught her gaze and noted – with a quick shudder that he hoped she didn't notice – that her eyes were faintly glowing and her hair occasionally snapped from static build-up. "Lord help you if I start to miss those days…"

Remy rolled off the couch and onto the floor, laughing hysterically. "Ya'll sure know how to clear a room," he said between gasps. "Gambit ain't laughed this hard since he read the 'best-of-craigslist' ads!"

For a moment, Ororo looked truly infuriated, but Logan knew that it was just the hormones. In the long run, she really didn't care. Arguments that he and Ororo had out in the open typically weren't very serious at all. Half the time he got her riled up specifically for the entertainment value, and he knew that she did the same when she felt the urge. Ororo might be miffed for the moment, but she'd be laughing about it in twenty to thirty minutes.

But, currently, she wasn't basking in the hilarity of their back and forth as much as Remy was. She rounded on Logan. "Fine. You offered. Go make me a sandwich."

Not a request, but a demand! Apparently manners weren't a factor for pregnant women! He stared at her, mouth open, only half aware that his expression brought forth the image of an angry parrot. She gave him an impatient look the longer he sat immobile, as though demanding an explanation as to why he hadn't hopped to right away.

"Well?"

"I'm trying to think of a good comeback," he muttered rebelliously.

"Why don't you _come back_ with a gotdamn sandwich," she snapped.

That took the winds right out of his sails. _Checkmate…_

Remy, who'd finally gotten his laughter under control and had gotten to his feet, slid back to the floor, howling in laughter all over again. Logan thought it was a bit dramatic that the Cajun was actually rolling on the floor, but he said nothing as he stepped over the younger man and made his way to the kitchen to make the mother of his child a sandwich.

"Well played," he muttered, unable to wipe the amused smile off his face.

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><p><strong>Next chapter we'll jump ahead a few years, but I wanted to start the story out on a light note! Hope you enjoyed!<strong>

**On a side note, yes, the child already has a name. And no, it wasn't listed in this chapter (where's the fun in that?). Cyber cookie if you can guess it!**


	2. Morning Routine

**Well, I shoud've known that my readers would be smart enough to guess the right name! I tried to make up my own, but then I found out what it was in canon and it fit so well that I couldn't resist!**

**Anywho, this chapter may seem like a bit of a filler, but it's background info that sets the stage. I promise we get to the action come the next chapter!**

**Thank you for all the reviews and alerts and favs and to everyone who read! And thank you to SuniGyrl for putting up with my habit of procrastinating until the last possible moment!**

**Enjoy**

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><p><strong>Morning Routine<strong>

Ororo woke slowly, her mind slowly but surely becoming aware of the light filtering in through the drapes and the warm body wrapped around her. She groaned softly. She didn't exactly want to go back to sleep, but she wanted to bask in the delicious warmth that Logan radiated just a little while longer. She wasn't tired from the… activities… they'd indulged in the night before, but she was in a clingy mood and at the moment just wanted to be held.

She lay still for a while, soaking in the silence of the mansion. It was too early even for the other teachers to start waking up, but if Ororo wanted to get her toddler ready for preschool without raising a holy clamor in the process, she needed to sacrifice some sleep. Once fully awake, little Kendall Logan was bright and chipper as the shining sun. But, in that half-asleep twilight, she could be every bit as grouchy as her father.

Carefully extracting herself from Logan's grip, Ororo smiled when he mumbled petulantly into his pillow and burrowed deeper into the clean, warm sheets. Since she was the morning person in their family, it was usually up to her to wake the other two up. So long as she had in mind the time that she wanted to wake up before she fell asleep, Ororo always got up on time.

Logan and Kendall, however, could both settle down for a fifteen minute nap and end up sleeping for hours without the slightest perception of how much time had passed. If Ororo left it up to them, they wouldn't stir until noon.

Wondering at the mood her daughter would wake up in, Ororo quietly walked into the room attached to hers and smiled down at the three year old. Like her father, she was cocooned in several blankets and deeply asleep. Ororo nudged the mass of blankets softly at first, unsure if that method would be effective on this particular morning. Sometimes a slight breeze could snap Kendall awake, and other times she could sleep through a hurricane.

Gently peeling back the blankets, Ororo laughed when the small girl tried to yank them back with a growl. "Time to get up, Kendall," Ororo chimed.

Face half buried in her pillows, the girl glared up at her mother with one sleepy eye and Ororo had to bite back another laugh. She had eyes exactly the shade of amber as Logan's, which made her look even more like him.

But, for the most part, Kendall was a pretty even blend of both Logan and Ororo. She had her mother's mocha skin and facial structure, but she had her father's eyes and dark hair. And the combined thickness and wildness of both Logan and Ororo's hair had made Kendall's nearly impossible to deal with, hence the braids Ororo had done a few nights ago.

The parent she was channeling, however, was completely and undoubtedly Logan. "No," Kendall said.

"Yes," Ororo insisted, tossing aside yet another blanket. She'd strip the whole bed if she had to. She'd done it before. "You have to wake up because you have to go to pre-school, and no one wants you to be a crabby apple."

"Ruby is a crabby apple," Kendall declared, fiercely wrapping her entire body around her last pillow.

Ororo pinched the bridge of her nose. Sometimes she wished that the children weren't so perceptive as to pick up on the hostilities between the adults. Ruby and Kendall had been getting along just fine the day before, but if Kendall had heard Remy fussing at Emma for 'accidentally' burning the dinner he'd slaved over for Marie, then Kendall was sure to treat Ruby with nothing short of disdain. Ororo would have to address this, as this wasn't the first time such a thing had happened.

On the other hand, calling Ruby a crabby apple wasn't a capital offense. Courtesy of Logan – and probably Remy too – Kendall's vocabulary was already a bit more… colorful… than Ororo cared for.

She narrowed her eyes at Kendall and towered over her. "Don't you be sour," she warned in a playful tone, reaching out and tickling the girl's sides. She clutched her pillow tighter and turned away, trying to stifle her laughter and appear annoyed instead. Pillow and all, Ororo hoisted the girl into her arms and carried her back into the main bedroom. She plopped Kendall on the bed with her father to allow her a few minutes more of light dozing while she began getting ready.

She turned her back and rummaged through her drawers and vanity, listening to Kendall yanking blankets, Logan's perturbed grunts, and finally their breaths falling in sync. Ororo turned and saw Logan – still half asleep – roll onto his stomach and lightly drape an arm around his daughter before settling back into sleep.

Going into the bathroom, Ororo took care of washing her face and brushing her teeth and emerged only five minutes later to see Logan half sitting up, scowling down at the child. Seeing the confused look on Ororo's face, his scowl deepened. "She kicked me," he grumbled.

"You shake the bed when you snore, daddy," came their daughter's muffled reply.

Logan looked downright indignant as he turned his glare on Kendall. "It's _my_ bed, pup! I can _sing_ if I want to!"

Seeing both the bundle of blankets and Logan jerk, Ororo had to assume that she'd kicked him again. "You're tough. You be okay, daddy."

Logan made short work of the blankets and pulled Kendall out, squirming and screeching in delight. Holding her at eye level, he shook his head. "What ever happened to my sweet little girl?" he declared in mock disappointment, tugging gently on the sleeve of her fairy princess pajamas.

"Uncle Remy said I could use a dash of Cajun spice," Kendall piped up cheerfully.

Scowling again, Logan set her down. "I bet he did," he said flatly. "You know what else you could use? Some clothes. Go get dressed."

Kendall's cheerful demeanor disappeared and she gave Logan a black look, letting out a growl of annoyance. Logan calmly pointed to the door to her bedroom and the toddler loudly stomped every step, even slamming the door behind her.

"She's aggressive this morning," Ororo observed as Logan got out of bed and began to get dressed himself.

"She's a three-year old's version of aggressive," Logan corrected, getting out of bed and trading sleep pants for jeans. "She's probably just craving meat again. I'll make her an omelet with sausages for breakfast and she'll be fine.

Ororo frowned, biting the inside of her cheek. "I just don't understand why she gets like that so out of the blue. It's not like we feed her tofu or veggie burgers. She ate steak just last night!"

Logan shrugged, looking far less concerned about the topic than she was. It bugged her a little, but she had to grudgingly admit that he was so in-tune with their daughter that he'd be the first to know if something was truly wrong with her. But far from being jealous of their close relationship, Ororo felt fiercely proud and protective of her family at times like these.

"It might be a mutant thing," Logan said. "There isn't exactly a wealth of data about children of mutants. We don't know if having two mutants for parents causes kids to develop the X-gene sooner. Or if having strong powers that we're fully in control of affects the control the kids might have. We don't know for sure if she'll have my powers, or yours, or some combination of the two, or some power completely different. And of course we have to factor in the fact that you're an omega…"

Ororo nodded absently, still staring at the door and tracking Kendall's movements on the other side. The same thoughts had crossed her mind from time to time, but Logan was right; raising Kendall was going to have to be a learning experience. Well, more of a learning experience than raising a child already was. When she sensed the young girl defiantly crawling back into bed, Ororo tapped into her ability to read minds via neurological sparks and spoke inside her daughter's mind. _"Ah ah. Get dressed."_

Kendall harrumphed loud enough for Logan to notice and stare at the door a moment before turning to Ororo with a lifted brow. "I suppose her aggression isn't hurting anything," Ororo allowed, "but I just don't want her to get like that when we're not around. She could've done worse than to growl at that boy last week."

"Probably should've," Logan mumbled under his breath, jolting in surprise when she landed a firm smack on his backside. But he recovered from his surprise with ease and gave her a wicked grin. "Didn't get enough last night?"

"Apparently you didn't," she said, watching him out of the corner of her eye. She sighed melodramatically. "But when do you ever?"

Logan preened as he pulled on a flannel shirt, looking entirely too smug for six o'clock in the morning. "I'm afraid attending to our daughter is top priority, darlin'," he said, _clearly_ mourning that fact. "But I believe I'll be available to ravish you" - he looked at his wrist, unfazed by the fact that his watch was still on the nightstand - "around noon."

"I'll be at my desk," she said flatly, "waiting on you, counting the ways…"

"Don't get _too_ excited," he muttered sourly.

Rolling her eyes, Ororo grabbed Logan's wrist and brought the inside to her lips, nipping gently at the soft flesh. His heightened senses seemed to intensify tenfold when she used less force rather than more, and she watched with satisfaction as his amber eyes smoldered in an instant. "I have meetings today," she clarified. She really wouldn't mind a midday _get-together_, but she'd been putting this meeting off for too long already. "But in about fourteen hours I'll be all yours, James."

She bit the inside of his wrist again, so softly that it was barely more than racking her teeth across his skin. The heat in his eyes ignited into a raging inferno and he pinned her between the dresser and his hips. His lips descended on her neck and the heat of his tongue stroking languidly against the tender flesh made light explode behind her eyes. Amazing that he still had this effect on her. He'd done exactly what he was doing at the moment thousands of times, and she never got tired of it.

She did, however, get tired of breaking off his advances when he was just staring to heat her up. She sighed as the mental alarm in her mind went off and pushed Logan back to a more respectable distance just as Kendall came out of her room. Not that she and Logan abstained from affection of any kind when Kendall was around – there was nothing wrong with her seeing them hold hands or kiss – but she didn't need to see her parents becoming impassioned.

Offering the still-scowling toddler her hand, Logan, Kendall and Ororo all made their way down to the deserted kitchen. In another fifteen minutes the place would be crawling with hungry, irritable, half-asleep teenagers and even a few teachers afflicted similarly. Ororo enjoyed the tranquility while it lasted and deposited Kendall at the table.

After three years of working in-tandem every single morning, Logan and Ororo moved through the kitchen and around each other effortlessly, as though it were a practiced dance. In a way, it was; before Ororo could even turn to open the fridge, Logan would tap the milk jug that was already sitting on the counter. And before Logan even contemplated adding onions, a perfectly chopped bowl of them would appear at his side.

Kendall had seen them do this enough times that she was less than impressed, but Emma's jaw had all but hit the floor the one morning she'd dragged herself out of bed early enough to meet them in the kitchen.

Setting a plate of what was more or less a meat omelet in front of Kendall, Ororo ate her fruit as she watched both father and daughter inhale their food with great enthusiasm. She might have minded more if they were messy or uncivilized about it, but food wasn't something that either of them played with. For all their speed, there wasn't a single crumb of food that strayed from their mouths. It was actually a little impressive.

When she was done, Kendall stretched tall and glanced up towards the ceiling before slumping back in her chair, a satisfied (and slightly mischievous, if Ororo was honest about it) smile on her face as she rubbed her full tummy. "Daddy, do I eat meat because I'm a hunter like you?"

* * *

><p>Logan smiled fondly and tweaked her nose. Sometimes it still amazed him that his daughter adored him so, but he certainly wasn't complaining. "That's right, pup. It's in your bl – "<p>

In the next instant, Logan worked hard to stifle an undignified yelp as Kurt popped into existence in front of Kendall (hovering an inch off the table, no less!) and noisily greeted her. She gave an equally loud reply and Kurt teleported to the other side of the kitchen to make his own breakfast before snapping back to the table next to the toddler, who was now wide awake and animated.

Logan noticed that the blue menace had seated himself at such a distance that he couldn't reach him, probably because he knew the Canadian was itching to drown him in his cereal.

"Mmm, too early for plotting homicide," Betsy grumbled as she entered, announcing her presence.

Logan let the memory flash in his mind and gave a satisfied smirk when she eyed Kurt with a hint of disdain. "Morning people," she hissed as she went about making herself tea. "On second thought, if you lunge fast enough, he may be too startled to teleport away."

"Don't pawn your grumpiness off on everyone else just because you didn't get a decent night's sleep," Ororo declared as she set her dirty dishes in the washer.

"Then how's 'bout ya'll don't pawn that God-forsaken cheerfulness off on the rest of us _normal_ people," Remy groused as he entered, pouring half the pot of coffee into a large cup. "Sleep ain't got nothin' to do with why you happy this mornin', padnat," he added as an afterthought, lifting a brow suggestively.

"I bet if you stayed up late playing video games like mama and daddy do them you'd be happy in the morning too!" Kendall declared.

The room was silent aside from Remy choking on the coffee he'd just inhaled. Logan studied his empty breakfast plate with more interest than it probably needed, trying to ignore the mad itch between his shoulder blades that told him he was being stared at.

If anyone else had made such a pronouncement, Logan's immediate reply would've been a hearty, "Damn right!" But, in this case, he was sure that more than a few of the adults in the room would disapprove of an answer like that. One, in particular, could express her displeasure in the most inventive ways…

"Video games, huh?" Ororo said, her voice a bit too casual.

That itch intensified until Logan's eyes snapped up to meet her glare defiantly. "She can hear the static. And she caught me off guard! What would _you_ have said?" Despite his irritable tone, however, he'd probably ask her opinion in the future instead of going to an idea that had come from little Ethan Stark.

The fact that Tony told his too-inquisitive son such things should've been an immediate red flag.

Apparently, using her powers to make a sort of static force field to muffle the noise they made was all well and good for everyone else, but not Kendall. That frequency should've been much too high for Kendall to perceive, but it was unclear whether the toddler claimed Logan's enhanced hearing or Ororo's sensitivity to the weather. Or – Logan shuddered – both.

"Oh, Emma will _love_ this," Betsy declared with a predatory smile, roughly slapping Remy's back as he descended into an intense coughing fit.

"Did I say it wrong?" Kendall turned a confused expression to her father. "What'd I say? Daddy, you said-"

"Come on, pup," Logan said hastily, picking her up and carrying her out of the kitchen under his arm. He could only take so much mortification this early in the morning. "Time to go to school."

Wholly immune to bullying laughter after spending years with Remy, Emma, and Betsy, Logan didn't let it bother him when he heard wild laughter from two of those three as he exited the kitchen.

"Daddy? What'd I say?"

"Nothing, darlin'," Logan said, shifting position so that he was carrying her in front of him, her back against his chest. "Uncle Remy's coffee was too hot, that's all."

Shrugging, she kicked her feet out enthusiastically, suddenly full of energy. _Thank the heaven's for her short attention span_, he thought, making his way through the mansion to Emma's room.

No doubt the blonde would be scrambling to get ready, having slept until the last minute. Logan certainly wasn't going to be the reason she was late dropping the children off at pre-school.

As if reading his mind, Kendall squirmed and looked up at her father. "I don't want Auntie Emma to take me to school," she pouted. "With Ruuu-by. I don't like her, Daddy."

_Of course,_ he thought tiredly. _It's going to be one of **those** days._ Kendall loved Emma fiercely, but it seemed that something had yet again put his daughter at odds with Emma's little clone. Perceptive as she was – though Logan suspected telepathy rather than instinct – Ruby Summers would likely pick up on Kendall's mood immediately and shun her accordingly.

He'd have to mentally prepare himself since it was his turn to pick the girls up from school. He'd probably have to _pray_ that the teachers would have nothing bad to say about them, especially if they were both in this kind of mood. Ruby's temper was as short as Emma's, and Kendall's could be as hot as Logan's _and_ Ororo's.

Then there was the fact that Kendall was displaying these animal-like instincts. Not that Logan was complaining, per se; he'd felt a little misty eyed when the teachers had told him that Kendall had started letting out warning growls if the other children got too close. But the teachers had been 'concerned', and hadn't bowed out gracefully when Logan had suggested talking to the parents of the little boy who had cried when Kendall had growled at him.

But Logan was the bigger man, so he'd mumbled a dispassionate, "Whatever," and he'd left before he lost his composure and told them exactly where they could shove their concern. They had some nerve, expecting him to step back harmlessly and let Ororo address their concerns in the future.

"Did you hear me, Daddy?" she asked impatiently, twirling her new braids. The sapphire blue beads clinked quietly the more she played with them, and Logan didn't find the sound to be nearly as annoying as he'd originally anticipated. "I said I don't _like_ Ruby."

"I heard you," he replied distractedly, making his way down the hall a little faster. "And I know you don't like her, but please try not to push her out of the car window again."

When Kendall muttered something about never doing the same trick twice, Logan finally admitted to himself that he was ready to deposit Kendall with Emma and get to his class. But, knowing her, she was probably still making herself up. Lord above, that woman loved her beauty sleep.

He finally made it to her door and knocked. It took some effort not to pound, but he knew that Ruby was likely on the other side, sleeping just as soundly as her mother. He heard rapid movement on the other side, and assumed that Emma was rushing. That was an improvement over still being asleep, but not much of one. "Do you have ANY idea what time it is?" Logan inquired through the door.

"It's daytime," Emma snapped back. "I'm getting ready!"

Logan took a deep breath, causing Kendall to giggle in anticipation. "Well is Ruby ready? They're the ones that need to go. I don't care if you come out of that room looking like tales from the crypt!"

_"Of course you don't,"_ she mumbled inside his mind. _"We can't all be cranky old hobbits…"_

"Why don't you try getting up earlier so you have enough time to cover yourself in all that war paint, Dracula!" he grumbled back. "I'm supposed to be down with my class in twenty minutes and I haven't so much as corrected tests. You _drag-ass_ in the morning, lady!"

Kendall craned her neck to look up at Logan with intelligent amber eyes and grinned widely at him. _Shit!_ After three years, he _still_ hadn't learned to entirely hold his tongue in his daughter's presence. Blessedly, Kendall never repeated anything he said. She did, however, mention his colorful vocabulary to him when she wanted something that he otherwise wouldn't give her. _Thanks for the lessons in manipulation, Remy…_

Though, it was extremely rare that he didn't give Kendall something that she wanted. As Ororo had guessed from the beginning, Logan spoiled his daughter and caved in to nearly every demand; the foolish, the unnecessary, and occasionally the insane.

Still, he was better then Emma at holding his tongue. The woman had a mouth like a sailor to begin with, and she really seemed to struggle with controlling her outbursts. As far as he knew, Ruby never repeated what she said either, but that could be because Emma blocked her language out of Ruby's mind to keep her from understanding.

He didn't have that luxury, and Kendall had learned the value of the word 'collateral' as a result. "What do you want, pup," Logan asked tiredly.

She grinned wide. "Auntie Dracula is still busy with war paint, so you can tell me a story!"

Hearing Emma referred to as such almost made Logan cave in right then and there. A plot featuring ratty blonde vampires was already half formed in his mind, but he pushed it away a tad wistfully. There really was no time.

"Your zombie aunt won't be much longer," Logan said patiently. "But be good today and I'll tell you a really good story when you get home, okay?" He could never say no to his daughter when she gave him that wide-eyed look of trust and admiration.

And calling Emma 'Auntie Dracula' had boosted her ratings as well.

Kendall nodded in satisfaction and turned to the door just as Emma and Ruby emerged. Emma hadn't done every last layer of her makeup, but she'd still made sure that she looked (her approximation of) presentable. So, stunning rather than flawless. And, as always, she made sure that Ruby looked nothing short of glamorous before she set foot out of that room.

Her blonde hair, the same exact shade as her mother's, was curled and pulled into elaborate pigtails with pink bowties. Her nose, her mouth, the manner in which she carried herself… all of it screamed Emma Frost.

The only difference was that her eyes were a much darker blue to the pale blue that Emma had. Logan imagined that Scott's eyes might've been that color under those glasses and optic beams, but he'd never mentioned that to the sensitive White Queen.

Shaking away that belief, Logan returned to his original line of thought; he could understand the attention to Ruby's appearance.

What he couldn't fathom was who the hell Emma was trying to look good for. Not that he'd ever bother asking; he was sure the answer would be something akin to a slap in the face, followed by the declaration that she didn't need to look good for anyone but herself.

"Okay," Emma said, already walking down the hall. "Why's everyone standing here? We're wasting daylight! Let's get going!"

Kendall squirmed in her father's arms and reached up for him. Logan leaned down to her level so she could reach and she planted a wet kiss on his cheek. _"Bye, daddy!"_ she shouted excitedly.

Logan started violently. "Easy, pup," he muttered as he gingerly rubbed at his abused ear. Kendall gave him a wide, innocent smile and he set her down on the ground with a mock glare. Obviously she'd inherited those banshee lungs from her mother.

Well, they were _both_ pretty loud…

Emma scoffed at him as the four walked down the hall together. "You protect all your other thoughts like the angry rat that you are," she droned, "but you have no problems whatsoever broadcasting the – quite possibly _illegal_ – things that you and Storm do when you're alone."

"Green isn't your best color," he muttered, flashing her the image of something that he and Ororo had tried a few weeks ago with _fantastic_ results.

Instead of the disapproving scoff he'd expected, Emma leaned her head back and nearly howled her laughter. "How is that even _possible_ with a metal skeleton?"

Logan shrugged, lifting Ruby into the air and letting her give him a kiss on his other cheek. "I'm flexible," he said unashamedly, knowing that Emma was muting Kendall and Ruby's hearing. "And she's strong enough to hold us in the air."

Emma's response was more wild laughter. "Oh, I can't _wait_ to show Betsy!"

And with that statement, his smirk slipped away. Right. _That_ was why he usually preferred to keep his thoughts to himself. Between the two of them, they'd have enough ammo against Logan to last them at least a month. That seemed to be the trend whenever he revealed something that he and Ororo had tried recently.

"That shouldn't be a problem in the near future," Ororo said, coming down the hall towards them. Locking eyes with Logan, she flatly said, "Since we're keeping Kendall awake at night, there'll be no need for _video games_ for a while."

She casually picked up Kendall and Ruby for hugs and kisses each, and Emma gave Logan a smile that was nothing short of vicious. "That must be frustrating."

Logan only shook his head wearily. Nosy and annoying that she could be, Logan wouldn't trade her friendship or candid wit for anything.

Clearly annoyed by his lack of reaction, Emma turned to the girls. "You've got everything, right Ruby? Are you ready, Kenny?"

Logan turned his nose up at the nickname, but said nothing. It had caught on easily enough and Kendall didn't seem to mind or even notice.

"All ready," the toddlers chirped, already skipping down the hall.

Emma followed after hurriedly, and Kendall turned around one last time to wave at her parents. "Bye, Mama! Bye, Daddy!"

Logan smiled back. "See you later, pup," he answered.

"Be good, sweetheart," Ororo echoed.

When the three were around the corner and out of earshot, Ororo wasted no time in turning to Logan with a disapproving frown. "How long ago was that conversation about video games?"

"Three days ago," he answered honestly. "She said sometimes she woke up and heard snapping and wanted to make sure it wasn't a monster."

He'd been rather proud of his quick thinking when he'd come up with the video game excuse, but the look on Ororo's face gave him no small amount of uncertainty.

"And how exactly were you planning on explaining it to her if she ever got up one night and wanted to 'play video games' with us?"

"Eh?"

"Didn't think of that, did you?"

Well, no. "I'm sure we can figure out a way to block out the noise," he purred, pulling her close to distract her from her anger. "We have fifteen minutes to practice..."

Forty-five minutes later, Logan hurried down the stairs and out to the courtyard to find Kitty leading the students through their stretches. He sighed in relief. All the times that Kitty covered his ass, she may as well co-teach the damn class.

Kitty gave him a look that he recognized. "All the times I get this class started for you when you're... occupied…" She shook her head. He sighed. They both knew that she wasn't talking about Emma. Hands on her hips, she boldly continued, "When can I get away with a mid-morning rendezvous?"

"When you're thirty."

Facing his class, Logan rubbed his hands together with a grin and ignored the unflattering statements Kitty was muttering. They'd had a test the day before, which meant the beginning of a new subject. "Who's up for a little martial arts?"


	3. Missing

**So after this long I've finally got the REAL Chapter Three up for you ladies and gents. After a few PMs here and there and a little poll on my profile page, most of you have encouraged me to do either post the chapters as I revisit them, or to do whatever *I* need to do to recover. (For those interested, all eight pairs of my father's sunglasses have been 'missing' for weeks. *evil grin* But, to be fair, ALL of the info on my flash drives wasn't lost, so three pairs of sunglasses are floating around here somewhere for him to find.)**

**ANYWAY, I've worked on this chapter for a while, and here you go! Not sure when you can't expect the next chapter, but I've been tinkering with that one too so hopefully it won't be as long in coming as this one was. As always, Sunigyrl, you are the bomb dot com!  
><strong>

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p><strong>Missing<strong>

Ruby scrambled back into her daycare building with all the other kids when the teachers called them and hurried over to the craft table, pausing only to glare at another blond girl, Jessica, that pushed in front of her a blew a raspberry at her. Ruby wanted to snap at her, but remembering her mother's scolding the last time she'd gotten into 'a very unlady-like tussle', Ruby settled for tossing her longer, curlier, _prettier_ hair in Jessica's face.

She snatched at Ruby's hair and tugged, causing her to yelp. But the Jessica pretended that nothing had happened when the teachers looked, and Ruby knew that she wouldn't be able to get back at Jessica without getting into trouble. She'd need Kendall's help if she wanted revenge.

Ruby and Kendall didn't like each other very much today, but all their family at the mansion had taught them to always unite against a common enemy. If nothing else, Kendall would help Ruby because she _had_ to, although Ruby was sure that Kendall wouldn't mind. Kendall didn't like Jessica either because she'd said the blue beads on her braids were for boys – and after being told that the blue beads matched her mommy's eyes, Jessica had declared, "Then your mommy must be a boy!"

Kendall had already sat in timeout for ten minutes after she pushed Jessica's face into her food at lunch – Uncle Logan would be proud, since Jessica was the tallest girl in class, and Kendall was the smallest – so Ruby knew Kendall would want to help. And getting into trouble wouldn't be so bad; at least they'd be in trouble together, and Uncle Remy and Uncle Kurt would probably be proud of them if they did a really good prank!

'Giving' Jessica her spot at the craft table, Ruby looked around the classroom but didn't see Kendall. She slowly walked a circle all the way around the room, unable to catch a flash of blue beads. She tried looking with her head like Mommy and Aunt Betsy were teaching her, but none of the other kids heads hummed in that special way that Kendall's did.

But maybe that wasn't the best way to look. Ruby had a hard time looking into other heads unless she was looking right into that person's eyes, so she wouldn't be able to find Kendall that way unless she was looking at her.

"…"

And if she was looking at Kendall, she didn't need to find her because she already had!

Maybe Kendall was being a creep and hiding in the cubby area again, waiting to jump at Ian - that boy she said smelled really good - and drag him inside like that nasty spider-trap-door bug she liked so much. Kendall could be so _weird_! But maybe that wasn't her fault. Auntie Ororo taught her to _like_ nasty bugs, and Uncle Kurt taught her how to fit in really small spaces and be really quiet until someone comes by. And, now that she thought about it, sometimes Uncle Logan dragged Auntie Ororo away and told her how nice she smelled. Maybe Kendall wanted to be like her mommy and daddy with Ian! Maybe she _liked _him!

With a crafty smile, Ruby decided she had what Uncle Remy called 'incentive' - Aunt Marie insisted it was 'extortion', though she wasn't sure how two words could mean the same thing - and saved that thought for making Kendall mad later as she approached the cubbies. Careful to stay out of reach in case she _was_ waiting for a victim, Ruby scanned the area with her eyes and her head but still didn't find her sometimes-sister. She moved backpacks, tossed coats, and almost fell when she had to climb to see into the top cubbies.

Kendall wasn't there.

"Hmm," Ruby huffed to herself. Mommy talked out loud when she needed to find an answer, and doing what Mommy did always helped Ruby. "Did she stay outside?"

She went to the window to look out at the playground for Kendall. She'd seen her playing with an icky frog earlier that she'd rescued from some boys, and when Kendall found a new friend she didn't pay attention to much else.

But all those thoughts of recess and revenge on Jessica went away when Ruby saw Kendall outside, and _not_ where she was supposed to be! She wondered if she was wrong, but _no one else_ had those braids and beads! But if it was Kendal, why was she letting those men carry her away? Who were they? Why wasn't she kicking or making any noise or biting like Uncle Logan and Uncle Kurt and Uncle Remy taught them to?

Ruby didn't like _that_ one bit! She opened the window and called out Kendall's name as the men ducked down behind some bushes like they were hiding.

Ruby ran across the room and tugged at Ms. Page's wrist. "Ms. Page! Ms. Page! Come see!"

She was finger painting with some of the other children and didn't turn to Ruby until she'd wiped the paint away. Ruby impatiently pushed at her arm, jumping up and down to make her hurry.

"Not so rough, Ruby," Ms. Page said. "We talked about being polite, didn't we?"

Ruby huffed and waved her hand like she saw Mommy do when something didn't matter. "I saw someone! This many" – she held up two fingers – "and Kenny! Outside!"

"Honey," Ms. Page said slowly, "Kenny came inside."

Ruby shook her head, her curls whipping back and forth. "Nuh-uh! She's outside! I _saw_!"

Ms. Page got up and let Ruby pull her over to the window. Ruby pointed excitedly to the bushes, but no one was there anymore. "But - !"

"I don't see her outside, Ruby."

"They _took_ her!"

"Ruby, we talked about causing a scene to get attention too, didn't we?"

Ruby gave Ms. Page a look that Mommy gave people when she was mad. She didn't blink once, and suddenly she heard whispering. It sounded like her teacher, but Ms. Page wasn't talking. _"… overactive imagination,"_ Ms. Page's voice whispered, like Mommy sometimes did without talking. _"Is she sure Kenny isn't just hiding?"_

Ruby crossed her arms over her chest, trying to imitate the tone that her Mommy used when she wanted people to listen. "_Where_ is she hiding?" she screamed, stomping her foot.

Ms. Page's eyes got wide and the whispering inside Ruby's head got louder. But before she could hear what she was saying, Ms. Page looked away, and it was quiet in Ruby's head again.

After taking a deep breath, Ms. Page looked around the area that Kendall liked to play in, and after a few moments she frowned, looking concerned. _Finally_, Ruby thought.

"Everyone," Ms. Page called out, "who saw Kenny come inside?"

"She took our frog!" one boy said, looking mad.

"She hit me," said the boy next to him.

"She said it was a toad," Ian piped up. "And they were gonna step on it!"

"Nuh-uh!"

"Ian, did you see her come in?" Ms. Page asked.

"Uh..." He looked away from Ms. Page, and Ruby could tell he didn't want Kendall to be mad for telling on her. But before Ruby could promise that Kendall wouldn't be mad, he spoke. "She was sleeping. Or laying down..."

Sleeping! That's why Kendall didn't fight the strangers; they made her go to sleep!

Ms. Page looked out the window again and left Ruby's side. She was going outside to look, but Ruby knew that Ms. Page wasn't going to find Kendall. Ruby wanted to start crying, but Mommy sometimes told her that crying didn't help anything. So what could she do that would _help_?

"Mommy," she mumbled as her eyes got misty. But she got an idea and her tears stopped. Her mommy would know what to do! She _always_ knew what to do!

"_MOMMY!"_ Ruby screech at top volume. _"I. WANT. MY. **MOMMY!**"_

The last time she had thrown a tantrum and started screaming, they'd called Mommy and she had come to get her right away. If they did the same thing now, maybe her mommy would be fast enough to catch Kendall.

Ruby kept screaming until Ms. Page came back inside and went to the phone to call Mommy, and Ruby shouted over the phone what she'd tried to tell Ms. Page.

* * *

><p>A piercing telepathic screech penetrated Betsy's thoughts and she stopped speaking midstream, listening. The source was easily identified - only Emma Frost could scream like that. The reason for that scream, however, was a little more difficult to place.<p>

As soon as Betsy tried to enter the blond's mind she was met with a wall of fury and anxiety that couldn't be penetrated without causing a migraine. She tried merely brushing against the woman's consciousness, trying to get her attention, but didn't receive so much as an irate curse for her troubles; she didn't even seem to notice that Betsy was trying to get her attention. "What the hell is going on," she muttered to herself.

A scream from Emma could mean anything. Drama queen that she was, it could be something as menial as a strand of gray in her immaculate hair... But some strong gut feeling told Betsy that this wasn't some temper tantrum. Emma screamed often enough, but her thoughts hadn't been colored with such blind hysteria since she'd learned of Scott's death.

Emma's mind was flying all over the place, her thoughts were in disarray and Betsy couldn't understand anything that she was thinking. _That_ had never happened before.

"Someone getting into a fight?" one of her students asked.

Betsy shook her head absently, too absorbed to snap at the child for the distraction. "No, but something is wrong."

Betsy tracked the blond all the way from her office to her garage, trying to get _something _from her. But nothing more could be collected from Emma's mind as she sped off until she was out of range and Betsy lost track of her. "Shit…"

"Something wrong?" a soft voice asked.

She sensed the closeness of the person more than heard it, and before the thought even crossed her mind Betsy's hand lashed back and clamped onto a wrist, ready to throw a body over her shoulder. But her mind had a chance to catch up before her reflexes acted for her and she released the rich boy's wrist. Seemingly unfazed – because he _knew_ she didn't like people standing behind her – he gently rubbed his wrist as he stepped in front of her.

"Is something wrong?" Warren repeated. "I thought I heard you scream."

"Not me. Emma."

The slight tension left his shoulders. "Oh. Nevermind, then."

"I didn't say it was nothing. She…" She let the word trail off, unable to find the right words. She couldn't tell him what was happening, because she didn't know. She _hated_ not knowing what was going on.

Suddenly her vision shifted before her eyes and she was looking at Logan, who was outside with his class. He was tugging at his hair, driven to his knees by something that was going on inside his mind. Betsy could sense that there was a strained telepathic connection between Logan and someone else (most likely Emma), but the connection was broken and the vision ended before Betsy could find out any more.

Betsy blinked and she saw Warren standing in front of her, concern etched all over his features. It was then that she realized he was holding her hand, lightly rubbing the pad of his thumb across the inside of her wrist in a gesture that was probably meant to comfort her. Although, peeking into his mind, she saw that touching her was a comfort to him too. She shivered and snatched her wrist away, hating her body's reaction to such innocent contact. But she didn't have time to snap at him, and she doubted it would do any good anyway. His blue-green eyes didn't waver when she glared at him, but he obligingly didn't reach for her again.

"You saw something?" he asked, correctly assuming that she'd had a vision.

She shook her head, running her hands through her long purple locks of hair. Being unable to see what was happening in another person's mind – especially at a time like this – was a pet peeve of hers. More like a handicap, if she was being honest. It felt like she was going deaf and blind. "This isn't good," she muttered.

"Should we tell someone?" Warren asked softly.

"We may need to tell _everyone_."

* * *

><p>Emma wasn't sure how many traffic laws she broke on her way to the daycare – nor did she give a damn – but what was normally a fifteen to twenty minute drive turned out to be a less than ten.<p>

She stormed right through the doors and zeroed in on Ruby with her telepathy, nearly fainting with relief that she was fine, but also scared out of her mind that Kendall was indeed missing. Her daughter ran right up to her and Emma scooped her up. She pinned the two guilty looking teachers with a paralyzing glare as she rooted around their minds for details. The second she'd heard the words, "One of the children may have been taken," accompanied by Ruby's frantic screaming, she'd hung up the phone and high tailed it to the daycare in hopes that she might discover that Kendall had just climbed over the fence and up a tree again.

But Ruby's screaming had been adamant and truly frantic, and Emma would trust Ruby before she contemplated what the negligent teachers had to say. And the fact that Emma didn't feel Kendall's mind anywhere nearby…

The Page woman seemed to know the most – which was, in truth, very little. In fact, the little that she knew had been told to her by Ruby. If not for her, it might've been hours before these dumbasses had figured out that Kendall was gone!

Giving the teachers a withering glare and promising that she wasn't close to done with them, Emma turned her attention to Ruby and focused on her memories. Horror made her chest painfully tight as she carefully replayed the memories half a dozen times to assure herself of what Ruby had seen. _Oh, Kendall!_

Without a word, she went over to the back door and nearly ripped it off its hinges in her haste to get out to the little playground. She focused on the bushes that Ruby had seen the men with Kendall hide behind, and looked out over the playground, scanning furiously for something, _anything_. A cut in the fence, a candy wrapper, a bit of rope…

And then she saw it. Underneath one of the slides was what looked like a small tranquilizer needle. She didn't dare touch it, for fear of messing with the scent that might be on it. She wanted _nothing_ to disturb Logan's senses when he got here. Nor, she had to admit, did she want Logan to tear her head off in the event that his rage got aimed at her if he smelled her on it. The X-Men had often wondered if her diamond coated skin was strong enough to withstand the full force of his adamantium claws, but she wasn't eager to find out today.

In her haste and panic to get to the daycare, she'd completely forgotten to call out to him or Ororo telepathically to let them know what was happening. Though both were perceptive to psychic activity and one could even read thoughts when necessary, Emma doubted that they'd felt or heard her terrified shriek before she'd departed.

She knew from experience that neither carried a cell phone with them when they were teaching, and time was too short for her to risk Ororo possibly ignoring a phone call to her classroom if she thought it was unimportant.

Emma carefully set Ruby on the ground and expanded her powers all the way back to the mansion. She'd never stretched that far before, but her fear and adrenaline as well as the necessity to contact them at all costs fueled her strength. The static around Ororo's mind would be difficult to penetrate, and Emma didn't think she was up for that as well as the painful mental connection she was about to force.

As soon as Emma felt the whisper of Logan's mind, she used all of her might to let out a telepathic screech that could likely shatter glass.

* * *

><p>"Not quite," Logan told Hisako Ichiki, twisting her hand by only a few degrees.<p>

She gave him a skeptical look. "How _would_ I survive without your help?" she asked, chuckling and rolling her eyes.

"Laugh it up," Logan encouraged as he walked down the line and observed everyone's stance carefully. "Details like that are the difference between breaking someone's jaw with your hand or breaking _your_ hand on _their_ jaw."

"Won't break _my_ hand," Hisako said haughtily, using her power to project a large, nearly translucent, glowing robotic fist around her actual fist. It was always kind of cool when she did that, but it was truly impressive when she had the psionic body armor cover her entirely!

"Is that why some people can chop through wood planks and cinder blocks with their bare hands so easily?" Danielle Moonstar asked.

Logan nodded as he paused to correct her foot placement before moving on. "Exactly. Offensive fighting isn't always about strength and agility."

Kitty snorted from the other end of the line where she too was correcting stances. "So sayeth Mr. Strength himself," she muttered loud enough for the class to hear. A few tried in vain to hide their chuckles, while a few of the braver students made no such attempt.

Logan turned to her with his famous raised brow. "Mr. Agility would concur, as I'm sure you know," he said, noting her slight blush with satisfaction. The students didn't bother hiding their snickering this time.

"If all Kurt and I had to rely on was muscle and speed, I guarantee we wouldn't be as good at combat as we are." Logan lectured. "There's always going to be someone out there that's stronger or faster; that I can absolutely guarantee. You have to _think_ to win. Cement, wood, bone... Everything has a shatter-point, and if you know exactly where to hit to do a good amount of damage and exert very little energy – "

_**"_L_OGAN! ! !"**_

The sound pierced into his mind with so much force that it drove him to his knees. He clutched his hair as pain and terror drilled into him without mercy. A multitude of images rushed at him, but he didn't know what he was looking at until he caught a fuzzy image of two men in overalls walking side by side. One of them was carrying something in his arms. Logan couldn't make out what it was and the image disappeared, only to be started over again from the beginning.

The pain was still intense, but he tried his best to focus on the images that were apparently so important. A window, some bushes, a slide, a needle, Ruby… He saw the image of the two men again and focused all of his attention on what was in the man's arms, sure that it was important. It only took a few moments for him to realize that it wasn't a something, but rather a some_one._ One more instant and suddenly he caught a flash of _very_ familiar braids.

A hand lightly touched his shoulder and the images disappeared. Wolverine turned his head to face the female that had dared touch him and snarled like a wild animal. Her sudden shock and fear was apparent, but she wasn't his target. He tore off in the direction of the garage, seeing nothing but blurs of red.

* * *

><p>Kitty stood in the yard, frozen to the spot, dumbfounded and watching after Logan for a good minute before she snapped out of it. Something was wrong, though hell if she knew what. One minute he was fine and talking, the next he was on his knees, clutching his head and shouting about images, the next he was ready to take her head off. And his eyes…<p>

Kitty had heard that Logan sometimes got in touch with the rage inside him and let it loose, but she'd never thought that it was anything more than aiming it. Heightening his senses and increasing his stamina or something like that.

Wrong.

What she'd seen in his eyes was much more than that, something animal. Something feral, downright _primal_. His eyes had been dilated, so much that all that was left of his usually liquid amber eyes was just a thin brown rim outside pupils as black and infinite as hell itself. _Wolverine's eyes._ In that moment that their eyes had been locked and Wolverine clearly hadn't recognized her, Kitty had been screaming inside. She knew from horrifying experience that adamantium was too dense for her to phase through, and she wasn't sure what she would've done if he had attacked her in his blind rage.

Perhaps that's what she got for touching him. As soon as she'd seen that something was wrong with him, she should've gone to get Ororo, as it was fairly obvious that the weather witch was the only one that knew how to handle Logan when moments like these popped up, few though they were.

But none of that answered the question of what the hell was going on!

"Everyone get inside," she commanded, proud that her tone didn't waver. "To your rooms, right now."

The class was instantly on alert, and while some of the students began to make their way to the mansion without question, a few young fools stubbornly held their ground, waiting first for information so they could judge the danger they may or may not be in. _I used to be one of those young fools_, she reminded herself so she wouldn't snap at them.

"What's going on?" Doug Ramsey asked, frowning at her.

"Something's wrong. Don't know what." She turned to the students who had yet to move and used a tone that others' rarely heard. "It wasn't a request. Everyone. Inside. _Now_!"

She may have been only a few years older than them, but she was an X-Man, and they respected her authority. They hesitantly went inside after the others and she followed behind, pausing when a very intense looking Betsy appeared in front of her. "I take it he's already gone," the Asian said, frowning.

Kitty nodded. "He left just a minute ago. Didn't say where."

"Something is going on, but I couldn't get a read on his mind or Emma's," she informed the younger woman, her mouth twisted in a depreciating grimace. "He's the second one to run off like that in less than half an hour."

"It must be something serious if both of them left, huh?"

"I think Emma called for him."

Warren came up behind Betsy, a worried frown marring his Hollywood features. "Why would she do it like that when anyone else would've picked up the phone?"

"Because whatever is wrong couldn't wait that long," Betsy answered tensely, gliding past Kitty and down the hall with a determined expression. "Ororo is going to leave in a similar fit after you talk to her, Kitty, and after she leaves I want you and Warren to put all the teachers on alert and get all the students to their rooms. I think I know where Logan and Ororo will be going, and Emma will need my help before she does something stupid to get home."

And with that vague and convoluted explanation, Betsy was out of sight. Kitty wisely pretended not to notice the effort it took Warren not to follow her, nor the way his feathers puffed in indignation at the order to stay behind.

She brushed past him hurriedly and made her way to Ororo's classroom, sparing only a moment to wonder if she would've gone in that direction if Betsy hadn't mentioned Ororo.

_Yes_, Kitty decided. She hadn't really been thinking about it, but she was sure that her feet would've carried her in that direction. If anybody would know anything about Logan's strange behavior, it would be Ororo.

* * *

><p>Emma had spent herself calling out to Logan, and honestly didn't think that she could do it again to call Ororo without passing out. She was already feeling a little dizzy from maintaining that connection for such a long time, and the pain he'd felt was the pain she was experiencing from stretching her powers so far. She'd nearly screamed in frustration when Logan hadn't caught it the first time, but the images had been blurred by the distance between them. The third time around he'd seemingly realized what he was looking at, and the instant she'd felt that white hot fury that only Wolverine possessed, she'd pulled back. But instead of leaving, she stayed right where she was to make sure that no one disturbed any potential evidence.<p>

If those incompetent teachers had called the police, then they'd want to poke around at any and everything. And she'd be happy to let them do that to their heart's content…

… just as soon as Logan was done with whatever he needed to do. It was his daughter, after all, and his nose was better than any bloodhound or tracking dog, his mind sharper than New York's best detectives.

If it'd taken Emma a little less than ten minutes to get there, then Logan must've made the trip in about five. He didn't bother going through the building, which she was thankful for when he pushed his claws out of his fists and tore a hole in the fence to get into the playground. In his current frame of mind, he was focused only on finding Kendall. He wouldn't give a damn if he'd scared all of the children inside. Had it been Ruby that was missing, she wouldn't've cared either.

Her vision fading by the second, Emma pointed in the general direction of the needle and muttered, "Under the slide." She stepped back wordlessly, leaning heavily against a portion of the fence and kept up the appearance of someone who was on full alert. If she'd thought she was dizzy right after breaking the connection with Logan, what she felt at the moment gave new meaning to the word. Everything felt like it was spinning, and Emma would've sworn in that instant that she weighed no more than fifteen pounds. She stayed standing because she truly feared that she wouldn't be able to get back up if she sat, and she kept tabs on Ruby's mind to keep herself focused on staying upright.

Logan's loud and erratic thoughts did little to help the room-is-spinning sensation. Though she could barely see his fuzzy form with her eyes, she could see and hear him in her mind. He'd gone right to the needle and had paused before he picked it up, trembling from rage so great that it was a wonder he didn't erupt. His mind was a hurricane of red, so powerful that Emma didn't dare enter it for fear of being more overwhelmed than she already was.

She'd seriously underestimated the toll that a mental connection from such a distance would take on her, but she couldn't bring herself to regret it. She only hoped that her quick thinking had bought Logan enough time to possibly catch up to Kendall and whoever had taken her

"Mommy, wha – "

"Shh," Emma commanded. The outline of her daughter was a little less fuzzy, but Emma didn't dare focus her vision for fear of anyone seeing or sensing her weakened state. She sensed Ruby with her mind and gently covered her daughter's mouth. She was too exhausted to even think about picking Ruby up, but she held her body pressed close to her leg as though she might be ripped out of Emma's grasp as easily as Kendall had been taken. "_Uncle Logan needs you to be quiet right now, Ruby_," she told her daughter telepathically.

Ruby looked up at Emma with a worried expression. _What is he doing, _she asked. _Is he gonna bring Kenny home?_

"_Of course he is,"_ she told Ruby, raking her nails through the child's curls in an attempt to soothe her. "_Safe and sound. She'll be back before you know it."_

_He's probably the only one that can find her._

That last thought Emma kept to herself as she continued to watch Logan with her mind and through her daughter's eyes.


	4. Dead End

**It's been a while, huh? I don't have much excuse for not posting for a few months *winces* other than working. You'd think working at a toy store would be all fun all the time, but people get downright vicious when the LeapPads are sold out or we don't carry the rarest Monster High doll!**

**I'm sure you care very deeply about that (not). Anyway, enjoy the chapter, and I'll try not to take so long with the next one! SuniGyrl, thank you once again for putting up with my laziness!**

* * *

><p>Wolverine dismounted his motorcycle at the daycare, already in full predator mode. Though his vision was tinted blood-red by his extreme rage, it gave him an advantage; despite driving nearly ninety miles per hour, he had seen any and everything in sight with sharp clarity. His anger fueled his quick thinking, making his thoughts as sharp as any of his other drastically heightened senses.<p>

He tore into the playground and found only the blonde telepath and her miniature. The former immediately pointed towards a slide and Wolverine's eyes zeroed in on what didn't belong – the needle from the vision she'd sent him.

He didn't bother circling the area for any other clues, only because he could already see damn near everything. He also trusted that the blonde had scanned the area for relevant clues already. She loved his offspring almost as much as he did.

After staring at the needle for a long moment he picked it up, wincing slightly. It was almost too much for his hypersensitive senses – the needle was saturated with the scent of his missing offspring, so much that he could nearly taste her scent though his fingertips. But beneath that familiar and overwhelming smell were the faint scents of the males that had taken her.

Some emotion that Wolverine didn't have an immediate name for swelled in his chest, so powerful that he had difficulty breathing and was momentarily dizzy. In the very back of his mind – where Logan lay dormant in darkness – he recognized the emotion, but didn't _want_ to name it. If he gave it a name, he'd give it life and it would consume him.

Not that it would've mattered much if he _did _want to label it… Wolverine was too focused on his task to notice anything more than the scent of the males leading him to the fence. He impatiently cut through it, ignoring the fear that rolled off of his other pup, the miniature blonde that wasn't exactly his offspring but that he loved just the same.

He paused for all of five seconds to inhale deeply before he took off running, noting in the back of his mind that the bushes smelled strongly of the males. Even on the run, his nose was sharp enough to catch it and burn it into his memory.

_Now_ he had something more tangible, scents that better identified the soon-to-be-dead men that had dared to _think_ of touching his daughter. Now he was sure he'd be able to pick out their scents in the heat of New Year's in Times Square.

He let his feet carry him wherever his nose pointed him. He ignored the glances of people stopping to stare at him, ignored the multitude of scents that they all reeked of that had nothing to do with his daughter or her captors. If he caught them and he met no resistance in retrieving her, he might feel charitable enough to let them die quickly.

* * *

><p>The second that Logan was out of sight, Emma decided that she was no longer needed. The teachers were in the process of calling parents and the police sirens were getting closer with every second that passed. She was honestly too fatigued to contribute anything more than her presence and she doubted it would do any good here. But someone would need to inform the X-Men, as Logan likely wouldn't be coming back until he had Kendall. Ororo still didn't know anything, nor would she unless Emma could get back to the mansion.<p>

Still unable to see well, the blonde risked looking through Ruby's eyes and managed to get to the car without hiccup. Blessedly, the toddler stayed silent despite all of her confusion and anxiety. It allowed Emma to weigh the pros and cons of trying to navigate the roads back to the mansion through her daughter's eyes. She'd forgotten her phone in her haste to get to the daycare, and had (of course) taken one of the only three cars that didn't have a link to the mansion.

There was no way in hell she'd survive telepathically calling from such a great distance again, and she doubted anyone would be in the mansion's office to hear the phone if she tried calling from inside the daycare.

"I wanna help, Mommy!" Ruby declared eagerly. "I can help tell Auntie 'Roro!"

Emma managed to shield her expletives from Ruby's prying mind, but couldn't help berating herself for allowing Ruby to listen in on her thoughts. Or rather, for projecting her thoughts to Ruby. She couldn't let anyone, especially her daughter, see such weakness.

"I would need to link our minds so that I can get us home okay," she said uncertainly, more to herself than to Ruby. The fact that Emma had to fight to keep the strain out of her voice was probably evidence enough that this was a bad idea. She wasn't sure she'd have the strength for yet another link. And one that she'd have to maintain while navigating traffic all the way home.

"You barely have the strength to stand!"

Emma nearly sagged against the car with relief at the sound of Betsy's harsh and unforgiving tone. "You must've Seen," Emma said as she used Ruby's eyes to take in Betsy's slightly disheveled hair and clothes. Sometimes she forgot that the Asian had inherited Jean's telekinesis. "Did you fly here?"

"It was the fastest way to get here and prevent you from killing yourself and your child," Betsy told her. "I Saw you driving home using Ruby's eyes and a flimsy telepathic link. I Saw you trying to call Ororo when you were five miles out of range _while_ trying to maintain the aforementioned flimsy link that allowed you to drive. And I Saw you nearly slip into a coma behind the wheel because I chose to drive and missed you by three minutes."

The passenger's seat of the car was telekinetically unlocked and opened for Emma by the end of Betsy's rant. The blonde was about to situate Ruby in the backseat when Betsy impatiently pushed Emma into her seat and did it herself. Emma's vision – what little of it was left – brightened and spun and she honestly didn't know if she'd passed out or if time had simply stopped for a moment.

Despite her exhaustion, Emma still had her pride. "I did – and would've done – what was necessary. And I hope Logan and Ororo would've done the same for me if it had been Ruby!"

The Asian ignored that statement, instead muttering heatedly about Emma being little to no help if she killed herself. But Emma believed that she had done the right thing – the _only_ thing – despite what it cost her. Wolverine was on the hunt _now_, rather than later.

Although, Emma had to briefly wonder at his decision to track them on foot rather than on his motorcycle. Perhaps Wolverine hadn't stopped to calculate that he wouldn't catch the kidnappers if they were in a car, but perhaps he was unable to track them at all if he was riding fast enough on a motorcycle. It puzzled her that Wolverine would be able to smell them at all if they were driving in a car, but her head hurt too much to truly ponder that. Maybe Jean had passed some sixth sense off to him as well.

What she knew with absolute certainty was that Ororo needed to be told of the situation as soon as possible so that she could catch up with Logan. Ororo certainly didn't have Logan's sense of smell, but she recognized the neurological activity that made everyone unique. While Logan was on foot following the scent, Ororo would likely be in the skies scanning for Kendall's brainwaves.

Betsy seemed to hear those thoughts and hit the accelerator. "We just need to get within range," she said, her voice hard. "I'll make the connection between your minds and you can tell her what she needs to know."

* * *

><p>Kitty entered Ororo's classroom calmly enough, though didn't bother with the door. She didn't want to alarm the other students but, at the same time, this was possibly an emergency. Ororo looked up immediately, and seemed to pick up on Kitty's urgency. Whether she was reading her rapid pulse or perhaps the activity in her mind, it seemed that she understood that what Kitty had to say couldn't wait.<p>

"Keep reading, everyone," she called over her shoulder as she walked out into the hall, Kitty right behind her.

"Something's up," she declared the second Ororo shut the door. "With Logan and with Emma. Betsy too, actually. Probably. Maybe not. She might just be… aware…" Kitty rolled her eyes at her own stumbling.

Ororo looked off into space for a moment, possibly using her powers to feel for them. "Logan's not on the grounds." She frowned. "None of them are."

"Betsy said Emma left in a hurry and I actually saw Logan tear out of here like a bat out of hell. Betsy followed them, as far as I know. Emma left first."

Ororo frowned and shook her head, possibly trying to put it all together. "Define 'something'," she said with a perplexed frown. "And slow down a little."

Kitty raked her fingers through her hair. "I…" She shrugged. "I don't know. He was teaching class… all the sudden he shouted and was on his knees and holding his head like it was splitting him apart. He was like that for maybe a minute or so and when I touched him to ask if he was okay…"

Ororo's blue eyes darkened. "You _touched_ him?"

"I'm okay," Kitty insisted, hoping that her voice didn't waver too much. The relief on Ororo's face was enough to assure Kitty that she should never again touch him if he was acting strangely. "He only growled at me," she continued. "But his eyes were different…"

"Dilated?" Ororo asked with a worried expression. "Almost black?"

The younger woman nodded. "Yeah. He said something about 'not the target' and then he high tailed it out of here. I got the students inside because I don't know if he saw some kind of threat or something but…"

"Wolverine," she muttered, her frown deepening.

Kitty nodded. "And Betsy told me that Emma had left before him and had been just as frantic. She told me to get all the students to their rooms and to alert the teachers after you left."

"I don't know where I'd go," she muttered to herself. "And other than that, she didn't say anythi – " Ororo flinched, then staggered back, almost like she'd been punched. She grabbed at her temples and frowned, her eyes fluttering rapidly, just as Logan's had.

"What the hell…" Kitty hissed, but then she saw… _something_. Blurs of nearly transparent shadows danced across her vision, none of them clear enough for her to focus on. She leaned just a little bit closer to Ororo and made her mind intangible, opening it up to whatever psychic activity was nearby. The shadows became only a little bit clearer, but she could've sworn that one of the shadows was Logan standing in a playground, examining a needle of some kind.

Before Kitty could see much more than that, the ground beneath her began shaking. She made her entire body intangible and weightless so she wouldn't trip and fall through the wall. Ororo's eyes were neon blue, streaks of static dancing around her face almost like a mask. In fact, it seemed like licks of static were climbing up her entire form. Her snow white hair began to stand up, and Kitty was standing so close that her hair began to do the same. Seeing Ororo tap into her omega powers was something to behold, but Kitty had seen it happen enough times to know to step back when Storm was wearing such a lethal expression.

The temperature in the hall dropped so sharply that the glass on the door frosted over and Kitty could see her breath. A few of the vases with plants in them shattered from the water freezing rapidly inside, and she even heard the wood groaning in protest to the temperature.

The tremors stopped as quickly as they'd started, and Ororo walked back into the classroom. Kitty peered in to see that it was as bitter cold in the classroom as it was in the hall. All of the windows had frosted over, and a few even looked like they might've cracked from the cold. Without a word to anyone, Ororo kept walking to the window. She waved a hand and a gust of wind blew it open gently, her precision and obvious fury making Kitty shiver from more than the cold. Outside it was much windier than it had been only minutes ago. Branches bent slightly from the light force and leaves whipped at each other enthusiastically, though not violently.

Without a pause in her step, Ororo walked out the window and flew off so fast that Kitty thought she heard the goddess break the sound barrier. The wind died down after a few moments, almost as though it was following her, and everything was deathly still and quiet. Kitty sighed heavily, more confused than ever. Although, that cleared up the mystery of Betsy's remark about Ororo leaving.

"… the hell was that?" someone asked.

"Everyone to your rooms," Kitty told them, feeling like a broken record. "Something is happening." She felt at a loss, but really the only thing she could do was get the other teachers to stop their classes as well, and hope that if anyone else had a similar episode they might pause to at least tell her what was going on.

But she had the feeling that it won't happen to anyone else.

She stared at the frosted windows, thought back to those endless black eyes that had actually paralyzed her. Warning growls and snapping static echoed in her ears. Whatever was happening, it obviously had something to do with Logan and Ororo. The slight panic that both had radiated before leaving hadn't been lost on Kitty either, but that didn't make them look any less like avenging angels off to battle.

"What's happening," someone asked.

"Hell if I know…" Kitty said finally, then turned to the students. Not one of them had moved. She could see how repeating herself could get old really fast. "Rooms. Now."

* * *

><p>Betsy didn't slow the car to the speed limit when she was sure that Ororo had gotten the message. Emma's consciousness was beginning to waver from the mental strain of showing Ororo what was happening, despite Betsy easing together the link between their minds.<p>

But, to her credit, the only outward sign of her weakened state was the sweat forming on her face and neck and her slightly labored breathing. She probably thought she'd be expected to take on the role of leader when she got back to the mansion.

"I'm taking you to the infirmary when we get back," she informed the blonde quietly, not daring to touch her mind and strain her further. Betsy was sure she'd be the only one on Cerebro for a while, and Emma would probably try to help in some other way, further straining herself and probably hurting herself more than she was helping Kendall.

She heard a loud explosion overhead and rightly guessed that Ororo had broken the sound barrier in her haste. It would likely be a matter of a few minutes before she caught up with Logan and began her own search. She could only hope that their haste didn't make them sloppy or too rushed. Not having a child herself, Betsy couldn't accurately judge if panic would overwhelm logic in such a situation.

"Mommy?"

Emma turned her head a little and Betsy glanced briefly in the rearview mirror at Ruby. The young girl was staring at her hands and looked on the verge of tears. Emma seemed to sense her distress and reached back to grab Ruby's hand. "What's the matter, honey," she asked softly.

"Mommy, can I stay with you so I won't get stolen too?"

A foreign pressure formed in Betsy's throat that she swallowed back down with some effort. If Ruby was so scared about the thought of being taken, poor Kendall was likely terrified out of her mind. But showing her feelings would only upset Emma and Ruby, and that wasn't going to help anyone.

"Of course you can," Emma told her, glaring in Betsy's general direction in clear challenge. The blonde would hear no complaints from her unless having Ruby near put a strain on her recovery. When Betsy said nothing to contradict her, Emma continued in a softer tone, "You can stay right at my heels. I won't let _anyone_ get you, okay Ruby?"

The toddler sniffled and nodded, but refused to let go of her mother's hand.

Close enough to the mansion that it didn't strain her, Betsy called out to Remy and told him to gather everyone in the War Room to wait for her. Using his empathy, he pushed his confusion at her and she flashed an image of a fatigued Emma in his mind. She heard him decide to meet her there after he called the others, and Betsy didn't bother trying to tell him not to.

* * *

><p>Four hours later, all the X-Men – minus Logan, Ororo and Emma – were gathered in the War Room, tense for any scrap of information about what had happened to Kendall. Information that only Logan or Ororo would have. They hoped.<p>

Emma was recovering in the infirmary, and an emotionally exhausted Ruby had been gently put to sleep by Betsy's telepathy and Remy's empathy. Betsy and Remy had just returned from interrogating the school teachers and looking into the minds of a few of the children. It had been a dead end, just as Betsy had expected, but she couldn't do nothing.

Neither, it seemed, could anyone else. They had returned to find that Kitty, Kurt, and Marie were furiously scanning the news, radio and internet for any mention of Kendall or ransom or enemies that might want something from them, and Bobby, Lee, and Peter had been patrolling the halls, keeping the students in line and comforting those that were scared. For the moment, they didn't know if only Kendall was a target, or if Ruby and the other children in the mansion were potentially at risk.

Guessing that such a thing was the last thing on their frazzled minds at the moment, Betsy put out an Amber Alert for Kendall. Arguing with Tony Stark about the situation nearly brought Betsy's already hot temper to a boiling point, but she finally convinced the billionaire that there was really nothing he could do at the mansion but take up space. Any help he could provide in New York, he could provide in Malibu. It seemed to pacify him a little, though he continued to offer to fly to New York for at least ten minutes.

Betsy wanted to snap at the person responsible for telling him when he was on the other side of the country and unable to help, but she lost that desire when she found out that Kitty was the one to tell Tony.

In all honesty, it wasn't _so_ bad. Every extra pair of eyes and ears could only help them out, right? Especially since Tony could hack into any street camera in the world to search for her and could keep tabs on the Amber Alert. But it was exhausting enough to keep everyone in the mansion up to date, let alone someone who wasn't in the house that Betsy hardly got along with on the best of days.

So instead of snapping, Betsy made sure Kitty knew that she would be the one responsible for keeping Tony up to date. She agreed without hesitation, though Betsy didn't miss the residual anger in Kitty's mind about Tony being left out of the loop when she had been taken a year ago. True enough, Tony had been the one to rescue Kitty, and he might have found her sooner if any of the X-Men had thought to contact him before Kitty had managed to do it herself. Betsy still felt badly about that, since she had been the mission leader when Kitty had been captured. They'd all had so much on their minds with trying to get Kitty back that contacting a non-X-Man just hadn't occurred to them.

Betsy shook her head to draw herself out of those depressing thoughts. This wasn't going to be a repeat of Kitty's kidnapping. They weren't an entire two weeks without a word. Finding her won't be dumb luck and, damn it all, that little girl would NOT come home as a nearly broken mess that was afraid of her own shadow.

* * *

><p><em>My daughter is missing.<em>

The thought repeated itself a thousand times, increasing in volume with every step that Logan took.

_My daughter is missing!_

The advantage to traveling by foot was that he could catch the scent in the air much better than if he was on a motorcycle. The disadvantage was that he got tired _much_ faster. True, his rage had fueled his adrenaline and had taken him a good ten miles nearly at top speed, but he'd had to slow considerably after that. Five more miles at a jog and he'd had to slow again. He had no energy left. No energy to run, no energy to be angry.

But it seemed that he had just enough to be afraid. Logan wasn't sure he'd _ever_ felt fear this powerful. His insides felt like ice, he couldn't stop trembling, he felt like he was going to be sick. Every time he was sure he was going to throw up, he bent over, but only choked on tears.

_Taken!_ By two men, for Lord only knew what sick and twisted purpose! Was Kendall scared? Was she wondering why her father hadn't prevented such a thing from happening? Would he ever bring her back home? Would he ever _find_ her? If he did, would she be sick? Hurt? _Alive?_

Logan's body called it quits and he fell face first in the dirt. His nose had led him to a lonely one-lane road that twisted and turned more than a snake. He'd lost the scent miles ago, but there wasn't anywhere else to go but forward, so he'd kept going. The trees and bushes were much too dense to allow for a hidden dirt road. He'd checked.

His will was all that had kept him going for the past mile and a half, but even that had dissipated into cold hopelessness.

_My daughter is missing!_

He tried to move, even just to sit up, but couldn't. His tears flowed freely, refusing to be suppressed. He didn't know how to deal with such a powerful and crippling emotion. He got mad, furious, enraged. He could handle all of those emotions and all the intensity that came with them. But fear? Despair? What fears had he dealt with? When had he truly been at a loss as to what he could do?

Fear of heights. Fear for Marie when Magneto had taken her. Fear for Ororo in the heat of battle. Fear for Kitty when _she_ had been kidnapped.

And still this black terror dwarfed them all in comparison. He was afraid of falling, but it was a fear that he was used to, and something that could be avoided more often than not. He'd been afraid for Marie, but she hadn't been defenseless. Neither was Ororo, for that matter. And Kitty… well, she'd endured a lot. Only Kurt and maybe Tony knew the full story, but at least in Kitty's case they'd known who had taken her and why. Though they fought to protect each other, the X-Men knew the risks when they put on their suits and went out on a mission.

And helplessness? He'd been in plenty of situations where the outcome had seemed bleak, but he'd always known his role and what he could and couldn't do to help the situation.

But this was different.

Kendall…

She was only three years old. She hadn't been caught during a dangerous mission wherein she knew the risks. What could she do in her defense if her kidnappers wanted _anything_ from her?

_My daughter is FUCKING missing!_

And the last words she had heard from him? Not that he loved her or that he'd move heaven and earth if she asked him to. No, it had been a casual, "See you later, pup."

He hardly noticed that he was gathering air into his lungs, but a few seconds later he let it all out. His desperation, his fear, his sorrow, his frustration, his exhaustion; it all came out in a long, piercing roar that evacuated a few frightened birds from the trees.

He didn't care. He didn't know what else to do. He was tired. _Wolverine_ was tired. His rage had only taken him this far, and now he was left with the dark truth that his daughter – his little girl – was gone. And he, her _father_, couldn't find her!

His child had been stolen from him, and he didn't know why. He couldn't even think clearly, couldn't understand why anyone might want her.

_Unless they have a death wish,_ a darker part of his mind growled. He was able to sustain his anger only long enough for that thought to cross his mind before it was again replaced with fear and exhaustion.

He didn't notice when it started to rain, but when it increased at an exponential rate and had him soaked to the bone, Logan finally pulled himself upright to at least avoid drowning, though he made no attempt to find cover. He had trouble recalling almost a hundred and fifty years of his life, but he felt like he'd lived every single long year in the span of the past four hours.

He wasn't looking at anything at all, but suddenly he saw Ororo towering over him, somehow arching the rain around him so that he wasn't getting bombarded any longer. Her eyes were glowing blue, and only because she was perfectly dry could he tell that tears were spilling down her cheeks every time she blinked. She didn't tremble, didn't make a sound. She was like stone. Logan had a fleeting thought that she might be suppressing her emotions, but right now he really didn't care. He needed her rigidity.

He was so weighted down by grief that he couldn't even stand. He leaned forward and wrapped his arms around her legs, trying desperately to absorb some of her calm strength. She tangled her fingers in his limp wet hair, running her hands through in what she probably hoped was a soothing manner. He barely heard her saying a prayer in her native tongue over the sound of the pounding rain around them. He knew the words and what they meant, but they brought him no comfort whatsoever.

"You didn't find her either," he muttered.

He felt her in his mind, and she flashed images of her taking off from the mansion, pushing herself too far in scanning for her brainwaves. She'd put almost a dozen humans in the hospital and she'd given herself a vicious migraine that had slowed her down. She'd continued scanning, but she obviously hadn't been fast enough. Neither had he.

Kendall was gone.

_We __**have **__to find her_, he thought, tightening his bruising hold on her.

"We _will_ find her," she said after a long moment, her voice darkened by Storm's power. She lifted his head, her solid neon blue eyes burning straight into his. "I promise I will find her if I have to tear this entire planet apart."

Logan took a shuddering breath. Her promise wasn't quite enough to soothe his anxiety, but it was enough to curb it so it didn't overwhelm him. They _would_ find her – that was what mattered most. If for any reason he failed to find her, Storm wouldn't.

He struggled to pull himself to his feet and when Storm offered a steadying arm, his lips pulled back in a silent snarl without his permission. She stared at him before letting her arm drop, her glacial gaze unsympathetic as his first two attempts at standing failed.

"Sorry," he muttered when she continued staring at him. His nerves were frayed by this experience, but that was no reason to lash out at Storm for trying to help. Just because she appeared to be more in control of her emotions, that didn't meant that she wasn't feeling just as emotionally fried as he was.

She gave no indication that she forgave him, or even that she'd heard his apology. "I only have enough strength to fly us back to your motorcycle," she told him, her tone leaving no room for debate. Logan made a noncommittal noise. At the moment, heights were the last thing he was concerned about, though he did flinch when a strong gust separated him from solid ground. Storm didn't take him too high, but Logan was too occupied with thoughts of Kendall to appreciate her thoughtfulness.


	5. Three Stooges

**This story is giving me a bit more trouble than I originally anticipated. I am terribly sorry to put you loyal readers through such long periods of silence, but my muse seems to be incredibly fickle with regards to this story. But I started this, and I am bound and determined to finish it! We are all very lucky that SuniGyrl is such a faithful and encouraging beta, or I might be tempted to just disappear!**

**Anyway, enjoy your long overdue chapter!**

* * *

><p>Davis nodded approvingly as his brothers walked into the apartment that they'd labeled Site C. Lex was lugging the large car seat while the much larger Hoyt cradled a sleeping girl with beaded braids and mocha skin. Davis raised an eyebrow as his middle brother walked by with the girl. "Brat must look like her father," he mumbled, whipping out his phone and searching for the right number. "She doesn't look shit like her mother."<p>

"And what exactly does her mother look like," Lex asked, emerging victorious from his struggle with collapsing the car seat. "You've told us nothing except that she's hot, she's rich, and she's a mutant. I really wish we could've found someone with only two of those credentials."

"How else are we supposed to expand," Hoyt mocked, mimicking Davis' deeper tone of voice.

Lex, the youngest brother, scoffed. "Expansion is how we're going to get caught and thrown in prison, if you ask me."

Davis waved his hand carelessly as he sat at the kitchen table. "Well, no one asked you, so shut the hell up. Now that we have the brat safe and sound we can call her mommy and negotiate her safe return. For a reasonable price, of course."

"I hope it's that simple," Hoyt muttered. "I hope all her money is a front because she can only talk to flowers or something."

"Yeah, Davis," Lex said, turning to the eldest, "what's her mutation?"

Uncaring, Davis shrugged. "What do I care? She's a hero, which means she has to play by the rules, which means the worst she'll do to us is throw us in jail. If – and _only_ if – she manages to catch us. Which she _won't_, because this is her first time having her kid snatched, and this isn't our first ransom. Now shut up, I'm on the phone. You don't want to know how many asses I had to kiss to get this number."

Davis tuned out Lex's choice words as he hit the call button on his phone and waited for the no doubt frantic mother to pick up. As he predicted, she answered on the second ring. _"What?"_ she snapped.

Davis grinned, but kept his voice polite. Having her child stolen gave her the right to be snappish. "Please don't be alarmed Ms. Frost," he began smoothly. "Your daughter is perfectly safe and sound – "

"_Damn right, she's safe. I'm staring right at her, jackass. Who is this?"_

Davis paused at that, glancing at the sleeping toddler that Hoyt had placed on the couch. "Oh, I get it!" She'd had him worried for a minute. "You're psychic or something, right? Got a little crystal ball that you can stare into? Make sure that there isn't a single braid out of place?"

"_What, in all hell – ?"_ She gasped.

Davis grinned. "Now we're firing on all thrusters," he chuckled. "You have nothing to worry about – we're not going to hurt the kid – so let's get straight to business. You're a fairly rich woman, Ms. Frost, and we don't want you to go broke. This should be a fairly simple procedure."

"_Oh, I see where this is going,"_ the woman said, her heavy British accent sounding quite malicious.

And not quite as panicked as Davis had hoped. He'd hung out with some rough crowds, and no voice had sent a chill down his spine quite like this. _Damn mutants._ He cleared his throat to buy himself half a second to brush off the effect. "Three hundred thousand. I'd say that's a more than reasonable price for your daughter's safe return – "

"_Why don't I stop you right there. Emma Frost's daughter is **physically** standing right beside me." _

"So let's arrange – pardon? You're not – "

"_No, I'm not Emma Frost. She's busy at the moment and I happened to pick up her phone. But if you think you have __**Emma's**__ daughter, that would make you"_ – she paused, probably for dramatic effect – _"the idiots that took __**Wolverine's **__daughter."_

A mutant with a name like Wolverine didn't exactly bring to mind the image of a nice, quiet palm reader. Davis swallowed hard, racking his brain. He could deal with this. It was just a hiccup. A little speed bump. Right?

If the guy had money, Davis could drop the price and arrange a transaction with him. Or maybe just give the kid back, no charge, not a single hair out of place.

"Wolverine, huh?" He tried, fighting for all he was worth, to keep the anxiety out of his voice. "Well, I'd like to apologize for the mix up, Miss… I don't think I caught your name."

"_Perhaps because I didn't throw it,"_ she said shortly.

Davis tugged at his collar, which was suddenly starting to feel a bit tight. "Could you, uh…" How could he say this elegantly? "Pass him the phone, maybe?" He didn't like the way his tone wavered, and the sarcastically thoughtful hum on the other end suggested that she'd heard that uncertainty. "Or if you have his number – "

"_I doubt that he's available to talk,"_ she said, her well cultured voice smooth even with the smug edge to it. _"He gets in a zone when he's hunting, and right now he's out hunting __**you**__. So is her mother, Storm," _she added, seemingly as an afterthought.

"Fantastic," he said, his voice monotone. He hit the speakerphone button and set the phone on the counter, rubbing his temples. "Some mutants named Storm and Wolverine are hunting us," he clarified, just to make sure that his brothers knew how dead they were. _Figuratively_, he hoped.

"_You can't honestly think that they're just _some mutants." Her tone was severely condescending at first, but then she chuckled as though she suddenly found that idea extremely funny. _"You must not watch the news or get out much. Interesting, considering the line of work you've chosen. You're in for a nasty surprise."_

"If I may," Lex interjected, stepping forward, "what kind of powers come with names like Storm and Wolverine?"

"_Why don't you use your collective intelligence to figure it out? I know it's not much, but I'd hope you could at least manage to turn on the computer."_

"How did you know there were three of us?" Hoyt asked nervously.

Davis stood perfectly still, unwilling to look at his brother for fear of committing murder. Whoever this woman was, she was smart, and a slip like that was far too obvious to miss.

"_We're mutants," _she said simply._ "What makes you think that you can hide from us for __**any**__ stretch of time?"_

Well, at the very least, that meant that Hoyt hadn't signed their death certificates. But that thought wasn't entirely comforting, considering that they'd been signed nonetheless.

"_Why don't you use your imaginations? It's gotten you this far, after all, and I think that's a bit more fun than research. Don't you agree?"_ Her voice was incredibly soft, and it sent waves of goose bumps racing down Davis' neck and arms_. "I'll tell you this; between the two of __**them,**__ someone's not going to have a very good day."_

Hoyt swallowed audibly and threw the unconscious toddler a nervous glance. More proactive – or perhaps less intelligent – than the other two, Lex marched up to the phone and picked it up off the counter. "Great, well, thanks for the warning," he said before snapping the phone shut and marching over to the window.

"What the hell are you doing?" Davis demanded.

"You want them to trace the call?" he snapped, opening the window. "Why the hell do you think she kept you talking?"

"You ended the call," Davis yelled, diving for his phone. "I have important numbers in there! Give it here, or I swear to God I'll break my foot off in your ass!"

"Some mutants are already after us and all you care about is your stupid _numbers_?"

"Yes! Some of which happen to be numbers of people that can help us!"

Lex finally dropped the phone into his brother's hand and glared at him. "Maybe I should throw the phone _and_ you out the window," he grumbled.

"Try it," Davis challenged. "I'll lay you out so fast… I might do it anyway since you dumbasses stole the wrong kid!"

"I wonder how we might've gotten the right kid," Lex said snidely, tapping his forefinger to his chin obnoxiously. "Maybe if we had a picture of the brat, huh? Instead of some vague description? Female between three and four! _All_ of those little horrors were between three and four! The only reason we thought we had the right kid is because Hoyt – fucking _Hoyt!_ – had to yell out 'Ruby!' and that" – he pointed to the unknown child – "is the brat that looked up!"

"It seemed like a good idea," Hoyt said with a shrug.

Lex rounded on his other brother. "It _was_ a good idea," he said earnestly. "But you know what would've been a better idea? Sending your younger brothers out with more information than a name and the mother's economic status! This is ridiculous! I'm calling the Boss!"

"The hell you are!" Davis snarled. "You want him to skin us alive? Literally?"

"This bitching isn't helping anything," Hoyt barked. "Lex, shut up and let him think. And Dave, how about some of those people that'll help us, huh?"

Davis took a deep breath, running down his list of options. "Fuck. I – " He paused, running a hand through his hair. "I can't even find the words to describe how positively _brainless_ – "

"I _told_ you that we needed more info," Lex screeched, high on his horse. "I fucking _**told**_ you!"

"Don't take that tone with me, little brother!"

Lex took a step forward. Davis took a step back. He didn't want to fight his youngest brother when there were so many other important things that they needed to be doing instead. But, being the youngest and having the hottest temper, fighting was the only thing Lex was ever ready for. "This is _entirely_ your fault," Lex hissed. "You thought that quick and easy were synonymous, and now we've got some _freaks_ out _hunting_ us because _you_ thought you could make some fast cash off a _rich_ freak!"

"I'll _fix_ it," Davis snapped. "We'll – We'll bargain with them, we'll give the brat back, safe and sound – "

"You think that'll work," Hoyt asked, frowning down at the still sleeping toddler. "I don't know… I've heard stories about this dude, Wolverine…"

"Oh, wonderful!" Lex declared, then turned to Davis with false eagerness. "Did you hear that, Davis? He's heard _stories_!"

"I think that chick was telling the truth…"

Lex nodded overdramatically. "She was telling the truth, Davis!"

Davis picked up his phone and skimmed through his contacts. "Fuck off, Alexander," he snapped. "I said I'd fix it. And let me just say, if I am to blame, I'm certainly not the _only_ one to blame. Did you rejects just grab the first damn kid you saw?"

Lex laughed bitterly, rubbing at the stubble on his chin. "We didn't exactly have time to stake the place out or conduct interviews since _you_ had us on a schedule!"

"_Hey_!" Hoyt snapped. "Shut up or you'll wake the girl. She'll be scared enough when she wakes up someplace that's unfamiliar."

Davis blinked, his patience already paper thin. "Why is that relevant?"

Hoyt shrugged. "Okay, then _you_ get to be the one to explain – to a father and mother who might have no reservations about killing us – why their daughter is terrified of us. You think they'll stop to ask her if we were just arguing? Or do you think they'll just slice us open?"

"The lady didn't say we were up against the Manson family," Lex said in a falsely helpful tone.

"The lady said to use our imaginations," Hoyt snapped, "and **I** imagine if the kid so much as sneezes, they'll _smite_ us for not having an air purifier!"

Davis bit his lip, his eyes falling on the toddler. Hoyt glared between his brothers. "The reason that less than half of the parents pursue us because we don't traumatize the kids. We take the money, we pass over the usually happy – or at least calm – kid, and we disappear. That's why the Boss keeps hiring us for this kind of thing."

Davis snorted, but lowered his tone anyway. "Well, that's not exactly an option this time, is it?"

"You think they'll let us live if the girl is upset?"

Their eldest brother laughed bitterly. "You think they'll let us live if the kid is perfectly happy?" he countered. "Because Hoyt's over-active imagination has _me_ imagining that pissed off T-Rex from Jurassic Park that's looking for its baby! They can't find us with the kid! They can't find us _at all_! We need to get the fuck out of here!"

"Oh, it's too late for that," Lex said, lowering his tone as well. "You think the Boss will accept any story but the truth? You think these parents will stop looking for us even if they find the kid sleeping here without so much as a wrinkle in her clothing?"

Davis brother snapped his phone shut, throwing his hands up. "So what do _you_ propose that we do, little brother? We're damned if we do and we're damned if we don't!" Here, Lex was silent. Davis knew that his brother could improvise with the best of them, but actual plans weren't his forte. "I thought so," he muttered, opening his phone again and reading the name he'd left off on. "Why don't you leave the thinking to me, 'kay?"

Lex collapsed into a chair, shooting the child a scathing glare. "Because that's been working great so far…"

* * *

><p>"<em>Damn it!"<em>

Betsy snapped Emma's phone shut, barely resisting the urge to throw it against the wall in her frustration. She'd been trying to keep the kidnappers talking, hoping that they'd be interested in who was tracking them down with the intent to kill.

She'd gotten the call in the hallway, on her way to put a tired Ruby to bed with a downright exhausted Emma. Realizing that she was speaking to Kendall's kidnappers, Betsy had turned right around and had barged into Ororo's empty office, searching around uselessly for the device that Tony Stark had given them just in case of such an emergency. When plugged into the phone, the little tab could triangulate the location of the caller. All it needed was ten seconds to do it while the person was on the other line.

She'd had to tear the office apart as quietly as possible to find it, only to have the men hang up not three seconds after she'd plugged it into the phone. It seemed that the second man – Stooge Two, in her mind – had realized that she was trying to buy time, but she was more inclined to believe that it was because he was scared.

Had the idiots really thought that they had Ruby? Had they seriously expected it to be a smooth ride if they _had_ kidnapped the right girl? "Fucking amateurs," Betsy muttered angrily, glaring at Stark's device, thinking.

"_Kitty,"_ she called out telepathically. _"I've got a job for you."_ Stark's device hadn't been able to trace the call in time, but maybe Kitty could find a way to do it.

Stooge One had mentioned that Kendall was perfectly safe, and Betsy dearly hoped that she'd stay that way. She'd tried to paint Wolverine and Storm as parents that were out for blood (which wasn't too far from the truth), so perhaps the kidnappers would keep her safe out of fear? Or perhaps they'd be too preoccupied with coming up with a plan to bargain for their lives. She hoped so. It would at least it would buy Logan and Ororo some time to catch up to them, though she knew that whatever scheme they'd have ready wouldn't save them from the wrath of Kendall's parents.

Betsy knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Logan was going to kill them, and she wasn't as bothered by that as she probably should have been.

Were she in his place, she knew she'd kill them too. Betsy didn't have any maternal instinct, but she wasn't so naïve as to think that she wouldn't kill them if she found the stooges first, even though Kendall wasn't her daughter.

Ororo… That was difficult to say. Ororo probably wouldn't stop Logan from killing the men that had stolen their daughter, but Betsy didn't know Ororo well enough to say whether or not she'd actually take a life. The weather witch was an intensely complicated person; she prided herself in her high morals and ethics, and she'd learned how to wield her omega power in such a way that she couldn't be controlled by her strongest emotions, such as rage.

But they'd taken her _child_, for Lord only knew what purpose. Yes, they'd meant to take Ruby, but they had no way of knowing if money was all that they wanted in exchange for the child. This situation was sure to push Ororo to the edge, but Betsy honestly couldn't say whether or not Ororo would kill them.

More than that, she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"Come on Ruby," she said, gently ushering the tired toddler down to her room. "Kitty and I have work to do, and it's time for you to go to bed."

* * *

><p>Hoyt had taken Lex out to cool off, and Davis had moved into the spare bedroom to avoid waking the kid since the drug would be wearing off soon.<p>

He stared at the name on his phone screen for a long moment, lightly running his thumb across the CALL button. He'd been given this particular number by one of the few, honest mob bosses left in all of New York, and it had come with a warning. "You better be out of every conceivable option before you call this guy," the mobster had told Davis. "You better have no hope whatsoever before you even _think_ of this number, and you'd better have money for him, 'cause he ain't cheap." He'd ended his statement by pointing emphatically to the paper coaster that he'd written the number on. No last name, no address. Just a first name, a number, and a promise that _this_ man could get _anything_ or _anyone_. And as for the money… Well, if Davis had to choose between being out a couple thousand dollars or being dead, he'd shell out a couple thousand more just to be sure that his ass was covered.

Davis took a deep breath, then another. He pushed the CALL button and winced when it began ringing. No turning back now. He sent a silent prayer to whatever deity existed just as someone picked up on the other end.

"_Hello Caller-Info-Not-Available,"_ he drawled boredly. His voice was deep and rumbling, and there was something almost… _feral_ about it. It already raised hairs on the back of Davis' neck.

But he cleared his throat and spoke with a sure voice, one that people were inclined listened to. "Am I speaking to Victor?"

"_You know my name,"_ he said with a dark chuckle. _"I'm guessing that means you have a problem?"_

"One that I'm hoping you can help us solve."

"_Well, if you want results then you've called the right guy. Let's hear it."_

* * *

><p>Kendall woke slowly, groaning and rubbing at her eyes. She smacked her lips. Her mouth tasted bad; dry and fluffy and icky.<p>

She then yawned wide, but upon doing that she was hit with smells that she didn't recognize. She smelled the surface that she was on. It wasn't her bed, and it wasn't Momma and Daddy's bed, and it wasn't the couch in the living room. In fact, the air she was breathing didn't smell like home or daycare at all. It smelled stale, like the windows had never been opened.

Kendall's bottom lip stuck out as she continued smelling the air. She didn't smell Momma or Daddy. Or Auntie Emma or even Ruby. She didn't smell Kurt or Remy or Rogue or Lee or Kitty or Bobby. She didn't smell _anything _familiar. She didn't _see_ anything familiar.

That bottom lip started to tremble and her vision got blurry. She smelled the salt from her tears and opened her mouth to let out a loud wail that she hoped Momma and Daddy would hear so they would bring her back home.


	6. Stress

***Nervously shuffles on stage* Well, should I even bother with an excuse this time? Not that they're untrue, but we all now about life and drama by now, yeah? It likes to get in your way and throw off your groove and make you move out of the house...**

**Thank you SuniGyrl for your invaluable contributions to this chapter, and if you readers aren't fed up with this story yet, the next chapter is practically done. If I don't have Chapter 7 posted by the end of the weekend, feel free to break down my cyber-door! A quick post after this is the least I can do after such a long wait...**

**Enjoy!**

* * *

><p>Betsy felt their kinetic tension the moment Logan and Ororo's minds were within range. Though they were just entering the grounds of the school and Betsy was deep in the basement in the War Room, Ororo's projection of controlled anxiety and Logan's whirlwind of anger and fear were loud and clear. Another certainty was that Ororo had the level head at the moment; she had focus and purpose to her thoughts, while Logan had no direction whatsoever.<p>

That could prove to be more than a little problematic, but Betsy decided see for herself if Logan would pull it together or fly off the handle. Seeing as his only daughter had been taken (mistakenly) for ransom, he certainly had reason to be emotionally frayed.

The problem would be a plan of action. No matter what the problem, Logan _always_ had some idea of what could be done to fix it. No matter how impossible, there was always a plan. But his thoughts were dancing anywhere and everywhere, so fast that Betsy wondered if the man himself was having trouble holding onto just one.

He had no idea what to do and, circumstances notwithstanding, that alone could make him a loose cannon. If the man who always knew what to do was suddenly at a loss when it counted most, he'd expect someone else to have the answers he was looking for. Though he'd learned to be a team player, Logan was a follower only when it suited him best, and Betsy had the sinking feeling that none of their plans were going to be good enough for him.

But, she reasoned internally, a plan didn't necessarily have to be good enough. Logan's anger could be used to their advantage, couldn't it? Aiming his anger was what kept him in such perfect control of the situations he was put in, but if he didn't have a target than it was possible that his darker side might find a random target for him. A little subtle tweaking within his mind might help point his anger and give him focus, allowing everyone around him to breathe a little easier.

Callus as it sounded to manipulate his mind in such a way, Betsy knew that they'd be doing Logan a favor. The less emotional they all were about this, the sooner they'd find Kendall. Fear would only hold them back and make them sloppy, especially the crippling fear that was rolling off of Logan in waves. Ororo would meet the least mental resistance, but Betsy knew how the woman felt about messing with her lover's thoughts.

_More complications to add to the growing list_, she thought wearily as she eyed the blonde toddler that was pretending to sleep on Remy's lap. Ruby had pretended to be asleep while Betsy and Kitty had tried to hash out the caller's location, but the women had been so focused that neither had paid attention. The only reason she knew now that she'd been fooled was because fragments of the conversation were floating through the child's mind.

And when the Asian had put her to bed with Emma, she'd waited all of five minutes before sneaking down to the War Room and setting up shop outside the door! She was as nosey as her mother, and though it was admirable that Ruby was worried about Kendall and wanted to help, the X-Men didn't have time to play Keep-Track-Of-Ruby.

Eight hours since Kendall's kidnapping and Betsy was already starting to feel the effects of that constant stress. She _really_ wanted one less thing to worry about, but her suggestion of mentally knocking Ruby out had been met with a vicious reaction from Remy. He too was stressed, but his method of coping was different than Betsy's.

"Ain't nothin' bad gonna happen if Remy calms her mind a bit before Wolverine and Storm get back," he'd told Betsy, his hold on Ruby more secure than was necessary. "She be 'sleep by then an' someone can take her back to her mamma."

Betsy obviously didn't like it, but she had about as much authority over Ruby as Remy did, so she'd let it be. That short conversation had been almost twenty minutes ago, however, and with Logan and Ororo headed down to the basement it was clear that Ruby was going to be wide awake if someone took her back to Emma. Sensing the shift in her thoughts, Remy looked down at the bundle of nerves seated on his lap before he nodded subtly to Betsy. He didn't want to put Ruby to sleep Betsy's way, but they could agree that the following conversation would only stress the toddler more.

She waited until the Cajun soothed Ruby's nerves with a bit more force before she accessed a fragile part of her mind and severed her consciousness. Ruby slumped against Remy, and it was clear that it would be a while before she woke again, so that at least allowed Betsy to relax. But before she could ask someone to take the girl to her mother and make sure she stayed there, Logan and Ororo entered the War Room.

No one dared comment on Logan's haggard expression as he shuffled in. His clothes were damp, likely from the rain that had followed Ororo to the mansion, and Betsy's keen eyes picked up the telltale swelling around his eyes that meant he'd been crying.

She shuddered to think of what he'd looked like with tears coming out of his eyes. She knew that under his rough exterior was a person every bit as emotional as herself, but more often than not she chose to ignore that part of him because it wasn't something that he showed to everyone. His exterior was the reason that everyone thought he was unshakable, and to know that he'd been shaken so badly was like watching an illusion shatter. Logically, she knew that she'd be more upset if he _wasn't_ shaken by his daughter's kidnapping, but that didn't change the fact that somewhere along the line she'd chosen to ignore that beneath his tough exterior he was human.

If only in the figurative sense.

But more than seeing him come undone, she shuddered to think that one day she might be undone in such a way if she let anything or any_one_ become so important to her.

Ororo, in contrast to Logan, appeared to be much more focused. Frighteningly so. Her expression was sharp, alert, collected. And beneath her sapphire irises was the faint, lethal glow of Storm.

Betsy still remembered a time when Ororo had very little control over that side of her, but the growth in Ororo and the control she now had over all that power was apparent to everyone. She wasn't one to be messed with.

_Good_, Betsy thought. One of the pair needed to be focused and calm and in control. She looked calm enough for both of them. Of course, it didn't help that Logan looked frazzled enough for the both of them… But when one had something the other needed they tended to rely on whoever was stronger, which would be immensely beneficial.

Ororo's sharp eyes scanned the nine other faces in the room briefly before speaking. "What are the facts?" Her voice was somehow smooth and demanding all at once.

"Ruby saw Kendall being taken by two men that neither she nor Emma recognized," Betsy responded at once. "When scanning the area, Emma found a tranquilizer dart under a slide on the playground outside. Apparently – "

"Apparently, nothing," Ororo snapped, a light gust of wind blowing some of the ninja's purple hair back. "I said _facts_. And if Emma was there, why isn't she telling me this?"

Betsy's jaw tightened, but she detected no hostility in the other woman's mind. So she kept her mouth shut. Everyone was worried about Kendall, and it did make sense that they first have a firm grasp of the facts before they started coming up with theories to fill the gaps.

"Emma is indisposed at the moment," Betsy offered smoothly. It was an acceptable version of the truth. Though incapacitated was more accurate, Emma wouldn't heal faster with more attention.

Ororo cocked her head to the side and her eyes brightened for an instant. She nodded, accepting Betsy's excuse for Emma's absence. It was clear that Ororo had scanned Emma and discovered her condition, and the fact that she hardly blinked made Betsy breathe a little easier. If Ororo wasn't worried that Emma's condition was critical, then that was yet another thing that Betsy could cross off her list of worries.

When no one asked for any further details about Emma, Betsy continued. "None of the teachers saw anything. They remember her going outside, _they_ thought she came in, but only after Ruby brought it to their attention did they realize that Kendall wasn't inside with the rest of the children."

"Imbeciles," Logan growled, punctuating his statement by kicking a leg of the table. It wasn't hard enough to break it, but it was hard enough to make the table shake and cause Ruby – who still lay on Remy's lap – to jump, suddenly half awake. Remy soothed her by quickly manipulating her emotions and erasing her distress and surprise, and thus most of the memory. He pointedly ignored the disapproving thoughts that Betsy sent his way. All the good it had done him to try to slowly soothe her mind, they should have knocked her out immediately and deposited her with her mother. If the conversation further agitated Ruby, it would awaken Emma, and that was _not_ what Betsy wanted.

While Betsy couldn't see the future of this conversation with stark clarity, she knew that it was going to get ugly. Were it not for that small feeling insistently nudging her, she would've been in Cerebro while everyone else had this discussion. Like Logan, she sometimes felt that group discussions were unnecessary and kept progress from moving forward. But, as much as she hated listening to everyone talk, she hated the idea of leaving her hotheaded and volatile teammates alone without some kind of mediator even more. It was clear that Ororo was paying little to no attention to Logan's mental state.

"Did they call the police?" Ororo asked, her tone a bit gentler.

"Only after they called Emma. She got there first, as you know, and after she learned what happened through Ruby's memories, she contacted Logan telepathically. He got there before the police did as well, found what he needed, and took off. I brought her and Ruby back to the mansion, and we contacted you when we were within range."

"Why didn't she contact me _first_," Ororo snapped.

All eyes hesitantly turned to Logan for an instant, but he hardly seemed to care. He shot Ororo a look that was devoid of emotion, but said nothing. Betsy dipped into his mind for an instant and heard his regret that Emma _hadn't_ contacted Ororo first. She could fly, after all, and with her omega powers she might've easily caught up to the kidnappers before they vanished completely. It certainly seemed to him as though he hadn't offered any valuable contributions to the search.

Ororo hardly glanced in Logan's direction, but the inkling of remorse was easy for Betsy to pick up on. She didn't rush to reassure Logan because he truly hadn't done much to help with Kendall's kidnapping. She also knew that that wasn't his fault. Emma _could_ have tried to contact Ororo first, and she might have killed herself from the mental reach and from breaking through Ororo's mental static. Logan might have found a way to get ahold of Ororo with what he knew, but the situation was too close to his heart to expect complete and utter rationality.

Ororo said nothing to ease Logan's mind, because she was having a hard enough time keeping her own thoughts from spiraling into chaos.

Suddenly Logan's gaze seemed sharper and more focused, and Betsy realized a moment too late that the change wasn't a good one. He was hyperaware of every single pair of eyes on him, and looked like he was searching for something to take his anger out on. Listening in on his thoughts, all she could hear was his anger and impatience building the more he became aware of how afraid he was.

The fact that he was still clueless as to what to do was only increasing his anger.

Betsy bit back the urge to make herself a target that he could unleash his tension on. On the one hand, she hated feeling like she was waiting for him to snap. But, on the other hand, she couldn't help feeling like it was only a matter of time until he did, and that she'd be better prepared if she waited. Trying to keep track of the swirl of chaos inside his mind was starting to tax her, but she knew that it was the only way to be ready to act when the time came. She didn't know what he'd do – and she honestly believed that he wouldn't hurt anyone unless provoked – but it was better to be safe than sorry.

Then there was Ororo, who was a wild card at this point. She'd certainly be capable of getting Logan under control – and she was possibly the only one who was truly able – but would she be willing when the time came? Betsy wanted to believe that she would, but it was impossible to tell when Ororo had never acted like this before.

"I got a scent off the needle," Logan said gruffly, looking only to Ororo. "Two males, likely the ones that Ruby saw…" He clenched his jaw, locking it shut. No one asked him to complete the statement.

"They were headed down the road I found you on?" Ororo asked, her tone much softer.

Logan locked his eyes on her and the building anxiety in his eyes seemed to recede, if only a little. "I lost their scent miles before that, but there was nowhere else to go on that road."

_Not much of a start_, Ororo thought to herself.

"_But it's better than nothing at all_," Betsy supplied to her mind alone.

Ororo nodded to her. "Well, that means that they should be headed south," she said out loud. "It's impossible to know just how far south, but if they left in a car then it can't be more than a few hundred miles."

Logan mentally flinched at the word 'impossible', his anxiety so potent that it even seemed to be affecting Remy. "You don't know that," Logan stated quietly.

"If you've got a better idea then let's hear it," Ororo snapped back, much louder. "And keep in mind that 'they could be anywhere' is a counterproductive statement."

Alarms began going off in Betsy's head as she watched their hostility unfold.

"But impossible, _that's_ something we can work with," he sneered. "If we assume that they're anywhere then we'll leave no stone unturned, versus keeping our search south when it's possible that they were simply driving to a helipad and traveled north."

"They could've traveled north, yes," she said tightly, her eyes glowing a little brighter and the room getting a little colder. "They could've traveled west. It's possible that they're somewhere underground. It's also possible that she's no longer in the country! You think I don't know that the possibilities are endless? We _aren't_ leaving any stone unturned! South is just a place to start looking!"

"Until something happens?" he yelled, his eyes growing darker.

"If we try to plan for _everything_, we won't do _anything_!"

Betsy opened her mind to the activity between them, wincing slightly. Knowing how much they liked their privacy – and generally being a lot less nosey than Emma – it'd been a long time since Betsy had forced herself to listen to exactly what was going on inside _both_ their minds. She usually only skimmed the surface of either, reading only what they weren't keeping shielded.

Logan's usually lightning fast thoughts were that much faster – damn near impossible to read – and the emotions that surrounded those thoughts were like a dense fog. Ororo's thoughts were coming to Betsy like a bad radio transmission, every bit as clouded by emotion.

"We ought to get back on topic," Betsy suggested, knowing that her two-cents would be promptly ignored.

"_Someplace to start_ isn't good enough," Logan growled. "Every minute we spend _talking_ in here is time that could be spent – "

"Running in circles?" Ororo hollered back. "Chasing after faded scents on foot? I'm being realistic! You and I both wasted a lot of energy when we heard what happened…"

"I am _not_ resting!" he snarled, causing Ruby to whimper softly, now fully awake.

Betsy stood up, determined to be heard. That feeling that something ugly was on the way intensified, and she'd be damned if she didn't at least try to stop it. This argument had nothing to do with what was being said and everything to do with needing to release the rapidly building stress. This could spiral out of control with one wrong word.

"How do you expect to get anything done if you're exhausted," Betsy stated. She hated to be so frank and point out such a flaw in front of everyone else, but at this point it seemed that he was ignoring the silent spectators. She wanted him to focus back on logic rather than his emotions, lest he fall prey to his feral side.

"_Both_ of you are running on fumes," Betsy continued, ignoring Ororo's pointed glare. The weather witch would be a fool to deny that she was tired as well. "You won't do Kendall any good if you don't have a little strength and _some semblance of sanity_," she stressed.

"Maybe having no clear idea of where to look isn't ideal," Logan admitted, his mind finding focus in the words he was saying, "but do you really expect me to _rest_ and _wait_ for something to happen? Wait to hear that they've taken her for… God only knows what purpose? Fuck that!"

"Nothing bad should happen. The intent was to ransom her," Kitty supplied. Everyone in the room turned to Kitty with surprised expressions. Everyone except Betsy; she could see her reflection in the opposite wall, and she looked positively livid. She'd told the girl to keep her mouth shut for a reason, damn it! She'd been subtly aiding Kitty in keeping her thoughts transparent from Ororo, but it made no difference now.

Ororo glared at Betsy. "_Any special reason why the **hell **you would want to keep that from us?_"

She wasn't so naïve as to think that Ororo hadn't been rapidly scanning every single mind in the room as furiously as Betsy was. For anything; information, ideas… But because Ororo would keep nothing from Logan – especially where their daughter was concerned – Betsy had thought it best to keep this tidbit from both of them, when really, she'd only needed to keep it from Logan. Did he really need any more encouragement to fly off the deep end?

Having read Betsy's mind, the weather witch relented. But only slightly; though she didn't agree, she could apparently see the logic in waiting to corner Ororo and tell her this first.

Obviously Kitty didn't see that logic. Or perhaps she'd decided to bypass logic entirely!

Betsy kept her visible malice to a minimum, however. Kitty wasn't a child anymore; she knew that she was responsible for her actions. But even adults make mistakes. And besides, it was clear that she'd thought she was helping. For that reason, instead of letting out a string of belittling insults, Betsy simply snapped, "_Stop helping_," in Kitty's mind.

Logan's reaction to this news pulled Betsy's focus away from Kitty. His mind, frighteningly like Phoenix's, felt like it was split in two. Half of his thoughts were so vicious and filled with rage that Betsy's vision began to turn pink. And the other half of his thoughts were so filled with fear and despair that she actually felt tears building up behind her eyes. Remy too was struggling to keep the strength of the intense emotions from overwhelming him, and even Ruby seemed to sense the mental activity Logan was radiating.

The air actually felt thicker. Everyone – whether they realized it or not, shifted uncomfortably the longer that Logan glared at Kitty. Kurt, however, was watching Logan like a hawk. His yellow eyes were as sharp as Betsy had ever seen them and every muscle in his body was coiled like braided steel, ready to spring at the first whisper of physical hostility.

"I just didn't mention it because ransom was the original intent," Kitty said after an uncomfortable silence.

_Ah, yes,_ Betsy thought snidely. _He **wants **to hear that the stakes have changed_.

Kitty hardly heard her, her entire focus on the predatory glare that Logan was shooting her. Kitty had never once backed down in the face of danger, but she apparently saw something in Logan's endless obsidian eyes that unnerved her immensely. The memory of Logan looking up at her and growling viciously flashed in her mind, as did a flashback to her time in captivity when she'd discovered through various cruel 'tests' that adamantium was too dense for her to phase through. The feeling of vulnerability – something that Kitty Pryde wasn't used to – was spreading rapidly, paralyzing her with fear.

"The original target was Ruby," Betsy said, hoping to bring Logan's intense focus away from Kitty. It was clear that Ororo's attention was occupied with scanning Kitty's now-open mind for every little detail she could, and Betsy wanted to curse Ororo for not paying attention to how he was falling apart. Didn't he always attempt to pull her together when the roles were reversed?

_Different circumstances, _Betsy had to remind herself. For all she knew, Logan might ignore Ororo in favor of gathering information about Kendall if their roles were reversed. Betsy could appreciate that Ororo was focused on getting her child back by any means necessary, but couldn't she see that every level head would bring them closer to that goal?

"They were going to try to get money out of Emma," Betsy continued. At this point it wouldn't have done anyone any good to hide valuable information. "From the conversation that I had with the clown that seems to think he's calling the shots, he meant to steal Ruby to get money out of her, but they accidentally stole Kendall."

"So _my_ daughter was stolen because they want her _money_?" Logan growled quietly. "That about right?"

Remy squeezed Ruby just a bit tighter, gently prodding at the very back of Logan's mind and trying to soothe a little of his fury. Betsy lent her powers as well, hoping that she could find the right words to explain the situation to Logan in a way that wouldn't get him riled up.

Betsy's mind was only just too late in telling her mouth to stay shut. "Did you hear anything I just said? They meant to take Ruby!"

"But they didn't," he yelled, his gaze on her sharpening, not unlike a lion getting ready to pounce. "Should I be more upset that Ruby is perfectly fine while Kendall has disappeared? ! Don't preach to me like that when you know _nothing_! It's all the same to you! They're not your kids!"

"Shut up," Remy snapped at Betsy before she could open her mouth again. "We ain't got time to be arguing 'bout what was meant to happen or who oughtta be angrier."

"We need to start somewhere, Logan," Kitty said gently. "Yes, anything can happen, but if we have a clear-cut plan then we won't be too scared to act."

"I am _not_ afraid!" he roared, his claws jumping out of his fists. So enraged that he was visibly trembling, Betsy suspected that the combination of her powers and Remy's powers were all that were keeping him from slicing the room the shreds.

No one refuted his statement, if only because it would anger him further. Betsy was sure that even Ruby could tell that he was scared, but it was a normal reflex for Logan to deny his fear. He was already hanging on for dear life to control his emotions and not let them control him, and he got closer to breaking with every second that ticked by.

While Marie, Remy, Ororo and Betsy had all seen these changes in Logan – this precursor to him going into a red rage – everyone else looked insanely uncomfortable. Betsy could sympathize with them; it was jarring to watch someone who was mostly good at heart turn into a killer right before their eyes.

Peter's body became coated with his organic metal without him realizing it, Lee began to tremble a little, and Bobby moved a little bit closer to Betsy as though for protection. Wide eyed and heart beating wildly, Kitty stayed rooted to the spot, and Kurt unconsciously hunched down, ready to spring. Warren's eyes began pinning as he glanced nervously between Betsy and Logan, his feathers slowly puffing out until they were almost twice as large. Everyone's fight or flight reflex was kicking in, and it dismayed Betsy to see how many were ready to fight, specifically some who didn't have a prayer against Logan on his worst day.

Very much against her will, Betsy's eyes settled on Warren's. "_I know you_," he thought in her direction. "_Please don't do anything rash_."

Though mildly touched by his concern, Betsy gave no indication that she'd heard him and had no intention of heeding his warning. She'd do whatever was required of her to keep the peace. If that meant that she had to put herself in the line of fire, then so be it.

To be honest, though, she was waiting for Ororo to jump in any time now.

Everyone jumped when Kurt abruptly stood up, his tail twitching and lashing so furiously that he risked breaking the chair if he kept sitting. The move was frighteningly precise and fluid to anyone who might judge Kurt based solely on his friendly attitude. His eyes never once shifted away from the distance between Logan and Kitty. His desire to move her as far from that mass of bottled fury was so great that Betsy saw blue smoke clouding around him.

It took her a moment to realize that he was so focused on being ready to teleport across the room that he was teleporting in place, essentially making him as intangible as Kitty. Betsy wasn't sure how he was able to do it so silently, but he _was_ a prankster, after all.

Betsy sent out a silent command to everyone to leave Logan alone and let Ororo handle him, but stopped mid-thought because her mind became clouded.

Her vision swam until the scene before her morphed into something else entirely. Knowing that it had to be important, she blocked out all else and let the vision go where it would.

She saw Kendall, curled up on a couch and sleeping soundly. The vision then changed to show Kendall awake and alert, sitting on a counter. Her eyes were focused on something that Betsy couldn't see, but suddenly her gaze shifted and she grabbed at something that was flying past her eyes. Kendall missed the first grab, but she managed to swipe it just before it hit the counter and hugged it to her chest.

"Good catch, cub," said a gruff voice. Then Betsy could see him clearly; a man that she had never met, but had seen in Logan's mind enough to know that he wasn't someone to be trusted. He casually walked past Kendall, patting her head lightly.

"Thank you, Uncle Victor," she preened as she unwrapped what looked like a small piece of candy.

The vision faded and Betsy swore. Everyone's minds were swarming with activity. Everyone except for Logan. His thoughts was silent as death for several seconds before there was an audible click within his mind.


	7. Fear

**Hmm... not quite the end of the weekend, but I'd say this update is a bit better than promising next week and disappearing for two months. Lately life seems to like throwing off my groove, but we'll see how long that lasts! So here is another chapter, since it was admittedly kind of cruel to leave you with a cliffhanger.**

**Thank you SuniGyrl, for your suggestions - they made a WORLD of difference!**

* * *

><p><em>"Good catch, cub," said a gruff voice. Then Betsy could see him clearly; a man that she had never met, but had seen inL ogan's mind enough to know that he wasn't someone to be trusted. He casually walked past Kendall, patting her head lightly.<em>

_"Thank you, Uncle Victor," she preened as she unwrapped what looked like a small piece of candy._

_The vision faded and Betsy swore. Everyone's minds were swarming with activity. Everyone except for Logan. His mind was silent as death for several seconds before there was an audible click within his mind._

"Damn it," Betsy hissed. The vision had come on so suddenly, there had been no time to shield it from others if she wanted a clear image for herself. Even if there had been time, Storm would have easily found a way to see it, possibly without Betsy even knowing.

It hardly mattered now, it was obvious that Ororo had shown the image to Logan without so much as letting Betsy try to interpret it – her own vision – first.

It seemed unlikely to Betsy that Victor Creed was behind Kendall's kidnapping (from the stories she'd heard, he seemed like a do-it-yourself kind of criminal) but to Logan in his current state, it probably made perfect sense. It answered the question, "Why _my_ daughter?" It also seemed to break his already fragile hold on his control.

Logan separated from Wolverine, folding into himself with all the emotions that were too intense for him to deal with on the surface. His eyes dilated until they were mostly black, and he lunged forward to stab. Betsy had a brief vision of him stabbing the table, tearing apart the room and leaving everyone unharmed as long as they weren't within reach.

Everyone else only saw what was happening in front of them. That split second she'd been watching what could've been had been her only window to warn everyone to be still, but it was too late.

Kurt disappeared from his spot across the table, reappearing in between Kitty and Wolverine. Thinking that he was going to attack her, Kurt used a good bit of strength to kick Wolverine back and coil his tail tightly around Kitty before teleporting them to the opposite end of the room.

Nearly everyone jumped in surprise and fanned out to stand against the wall and as far from Wolverine as possible. A few of them visibly trembled as they watched him stand back up and let out a growl so low that they felt it rather than heard it.

That kick – a blow that would've knocked out anyone else – only seemed to fuel Wolverine's adrenaline. He blinked only once before his eyes locked onto Kurt better than any radar and he lunged clear across the table in a leap that was as deadly as it was graceful. "Watch his claws!" Kitty screamed, throwing her arms around Kurt's waist and digging her fingers into his chest. When Kurt seized Wolverine's wrists, his hands went through the skin and muscle, catching the dense adamantium bone. Doing a complicated cartwheel, Kurt managed to again flip Logan away from the two of them and that was when Betsy chose to intervene.

Wolverine hardly paused, attacking whoever was closest with vigor.

For Betsy's part, her focus was split between dodging Wolverine, making sure everyone else was out of reach of them, and mentally trying to snap Ororo out of her shock. All she heard in the weather witch's mind was white noise, her mind clearly trying to wrap itself around the fact that in the near future her child would be with Victor Creed. She couldn't imagine a single scenario where Victor having her daughter wasn't catastrophic, and she was on the verge of a shutdown as intense as Logan's.

"You can't do this to her!" Betsy shouted, speaking to both Wolverine and Ororo. "You're wasting _her_ time!"

Wolverine didn't seem to hear her, but Ororo was able to lock her emotions away almost immediately. Barely able to keep up with him, Betsy returned her full focus to Wolverine, remaining defensive. She resisted materializing her katana since she wasn't sure how the blade would react to his adamantium claws. The outcome could range from destroying his claws permanently to destroying her mind permanently.

Betsy's vision shifted momentarily and she _Saw_ Warren try to intervene. The next instant he lay hunched on the ground, one wing clearly broken and chest wheezing as though he had broken ribs and possibly a punctured lung. Blinded by a foreign emotion, Betsy moved like lightning to place herself between an idiot Angel and rabid Wolverine. She waited until she could sense Warren just out of reach before she made her move. Turning so that Wolverine couldn't clearly see Warren, Betsy grabbed the angel's arm, yanking him forward. She roughly twisted his wrist until she heard it snap lightly and elbowed him between the eyes hard enough to stun him before he did something ridiculous like try to save her.

As though nothing had happened, Betsy continued ducking and dodging Logan's blows, slowly drawing Wolverine away from Warren's prone body. She became so focused on her task that she didn't notice Kurt until he blocked a potentially fatal blow just in the nick of time.

With commendable skill – possibly because he only had three fingers – he managed to grab Logan's fists at just the right angle to prevent his claws from so much as grazing his blue skin.

"You have to talk him down," Kurt said, managing to use Logan's forward momentum to throw the enraged Canadian over his shoulder.

Betsy shook her head, feeling the heat of the butterfly mask around her eyes. It was only after she glanced at Kurt that she realized that he was talking to Ororo, not her.

She stood apart from the chaos, her eyes glowing faintly white and her fingers held to her temple. "He won't hear it," she said, frustrated. "His anger is making it impossible for him to focus."

"So break through that anger," Kurt said, cracking his tail like a whip in his agitation. "You must _force_ him to hear reason!"

Betsy felt Ororo gather a considerable amount of energy into her mind and target Wolverine, drilling a thought into his mind like a spike. He flinched, but recovered fast enough, though he didn't seem any less enraged. "They're not the target?" he snarled, his voice about two octaves lower and much raspier than usual. "How do you figure she's not to blame?"

Betsy wanted to screech at the injustice when she turned and saw who he was referring to. Emma appeared to be casually leaned against the wall, but Betsy could feel her fatigue and knew that it was more for support since she couldn't stand upright on her own. No doubt she had sensed the agitation from Ruby – still being held by Remy, who hadn't been able to escape since his exit was being blocked – and had come down to see what was happening.

And at that exact moment.

_Excellent fucking timing,_ Betsy snarled inside the blonde's mind. But Emma had eyes only for Wolverine, and those eyes were narrowed in challenge, despite her weakened state. "Emma," Betsy warned. The blonde was very much like Logan when it came to getting lost in her temper.

"How the hell is it _my_ fault?" she demanded as though nothing at all was amiss. "You want me to feel sorry for you and wish that Ruby had been taken instead?"

"Maybe if you didn't flaunt your money around and _invite _someone to extort – "

"Fuck you!" she snapped. Her voice was a little slow, as though she thought Wolverine was dim, but in reality her mind was fuzzy and Emma was wildly grappling for mental and physical balance so she didn't pass out. She wasn't supposed to be out of bed for at least a few _days_, but here she was trying to pick a fight with Wolverine only hours after nearly causing her mind irreparable damage. "I don't have to live in fear over every little thing just because the world is full of danger!"

"No, you don't! Just make sure you can sidestep any dangers and pretend to care when someone else has to pay for it!"

Emma didn't react to that statement, nor did Betsy. There was no doubt in either of their minds that it was only Wolverine talking. Distraught though he was, Logan knew that they all cared deeply for Kendall and weren't 'pretending to care' by offering to help in any way they could. But Logan wasn't coherent, nor was he the one they were talking to. He was swirling in a black, endless abyss of terror, unable to function while Wolverine sought to protect him by placing blame.

It then occurred to Betsy that this split in his personality had to be a defense mechanism. Usually the two coexisted normally enough, but the extreme emotions had forced them to separate, and because Logan couldn't function, Wolverine was looking to take out the threat. But Wolverine had to be just as scared as Logan, because instead of fighting the actual threat, he was forced to wait until the threat revealed itself to him.

So he was, in the simplest of terms, throwing a fit.

Before Betsy could try forcing an image of Victor into his mind to give him a reason to save his pent up rage, he lunged at the blonde. Betsy got ready to take his feet out from under him while Kurt teleported himself to take the force of a full on body slam, but before the impact both were blown aside.

Kurt managed to right himself as though he had planned to do that, but Warren had to catch and steady Betsy to keep her from taking a graceless spill. Despite her attack, Betsy heard only concern for her inside the angel's mind. If she'd had time to think it through, she might've felt… guilty. But he wouldn't have fared nearly as well as a broken wrist and a bruised ego if she'd let him intervene, so she didn't dwell on that guilt. Instead, she reached into his mind and muted his perception of pain, at least until they got this situation with Wolverine figured out.

* * *

><p>Ororo replaced the two defenders in front of Wolverine. Seeing her didn't slow his attack, but she really hadn't expected it to. She held out her hands as though to catch his fists, but compounded the air pressure between his claws and her hands until the blades stopped about two inches from her skin.<p>

"They aren't to blame," she told him as calmly as she could manage. She needed to be strong for him, but she hated seeing him so distraught. The only thing that held her together was the memories of all the times she'd lost it and he'd kept a cool head for her sake. Now it was her turn to do the same for him. "They're going to _help_ us!"

He pushed forward with all his strength, forcing Ororo to intensify the density of the air to avoid getting slashed. After a few seconds of furious struggling he pulled back abruptly and roughly kicked Ororo's feet out from under her, sending her to the ground with a hard thump.

"It's because of _her_ that they took our _daughter_!" he growled, circling around her like a predator. There was no sign of the amber eyes that she always fell into when she looked at him – only a thin brown ring around pupils so dilated that his eyes seemed black. She caught a glimpse through his eyes and saw various shades of red, herself at the very center and colored the most vivid crimson of anything in his line of sight.

"That doesn't make you angry?" he hissed. In his eyes she looked calm, so calm that it made him edgy because subconsciously he wanted her to be as afraid as he was. _I **am** afraid,_ she wanted to tell him, but it would do no good. He'd want to _see_ her fear, and he'd vehemently deny his own.

"Do _you_ even give a damn about her, since you want to wait for something bad to happen and fucking _rest_? !"

She didn't want to listen, didn't want to give in to his goading… But he'd pushed exactly the right button to get a reaction. _No one_ accused her of not caring for her baby!

She waited for half a second until his leg was at the right angle before kicking behind his knee and sending crippling static all throughout his body. The air hummed around her as she reached into the depths of her mind and lit a spark, unleashing the omega power that was her own version of Wolverine; Storm.

Betsy seemed to realize that the situation was spiraling downward and Storm vaguely noticed her swiftly and mentally directing everyone out of the War Room through the now unblocked door, leaving the two lovers to their 'discussion'.

As red as Wolverine's vision was, everything in Storm's eyes became blindingly white. Wind and static pushed her hair out of her face so she could see clearly, and the temperature in the room dropped twenty degrees in a matter of seconds. Her target became blurs of various lines and colors that she read much like Doppler Radar. She could see the assortment of different temperatures of every inch of his body, inside and out. She could see where certain changes in temperature or pressure on his body would do him the most harm. She could cripple him easily by dropping the temperature of his skeleton, by compounding the pressure in his eardrums, by sending a shock of static through his internal organs. She could do any number of other things to him, none of which would quite satisfy her rage.

Lost in her violent thoughts, Storm grabbed Wolverine around the throat and slammed him into the ground, towering over him. There wasn't a hint of fear in his eyes, only rage. The absence of the emotion she wanted to see only fueled her fury, though it didn't occur to her that moments ago he'd been in that same position.

"If you want to start throwing blame, why don't you start with yourself," Storm seethed. "Regardless of whose fault it is for her being taken, it's _you_ brother that now has her! Your irrational grudge with him has brought us to this! It's _your_ fault that she's gone! !"

He threw her off of him and managed to knee her in the spine. Fuming, she gripped the limb that was closest to her and sent powerful shocks of electricity straight through his muscle and right into his veins. A yelp of real pain from him snapped Storm out of her fury, but the pain wasn't enough to stop Wolverine. As the thermal image of her enemy materialized into Wolverine, he immediately began attacking again, punching and slashing and kicking at any angle he might be able to reach her. She dodged flawlessly, still tapped into those omega powers that gave her otherworldly power, but able to separate herself from the emotion that had caused her to hurt him.

"_He's not going to tire_," Storm said inside Betsy's mind. It was more of a statement than a question, but she wanted some semblance of confirmation from the telepath.

"_Not for a long time_," Betsy agreed, tracking Wolverine's thought patterns furiously from outside the room. She was having trouble keeping up, but Storm knew that she wasn't as familiar with his mind as she was. There was no change to suggest that his rage had run its course, and it seemed at the rate he was going – because Logan had manifested his anger in the form of Wolverine and had separated himself from that anger – he could probably go for hours like this. At this point his fatigue would only be in his mind, and he was too focused to feel tired.

_I need to bypass Wolverine and talk to Logan_, Storm thought. She'd tried that already, but he was so smothered by fear that he was beyond being reasoned with while he was in darkness. She'd just have to try a different approach, but the most likely option to shock him out of it made her hesitate to act. She knew that she could reach the man she loved and pull him to the surface, but he was going to absolutely fall apart when that happened. For that reason, she wondered if she should just go the route of trying to tire him out. The last thing he'd want would be to break down. She knew how weak it would make him feel.

But, she reasoned to herself, what he wanted didn't matter – she had to give him what he needed.

_And there's only one way to do it_, Storm thought, thinking back to several incidents that they'd had over the years. In a blind tantrum, the thing that snapped her out of her rage without fail was realizing that she'd hurt him.

_"NO!"_ Betsy cried.

Storm didn't listen, and powered down just as Wolverine moved to kick her square in the chest, subconsciously expecting her to dodge it. She didn't attempt to dodge him and she went to the ground hard. She hissed in pain as her head slammed against the ground, but he didn't pause. His fist came down on her lightning fast, claws fully extended. She didn't flinch, because she knew him, trusted him, LOVED him.

At the last second he moved his arm a fraction and he imbedded his claws in the tile floor inches from her head as he glared down at Ororo, panting heavily.

That stunt – "_SUICIDAL!_" Betsy screeched in her mind – had worked just as Ororo had meant it to. That small hiss of pain had brought Logan to the surface, and he'd redirected his claws to the ground rather than her chest. She'd known that it would work because he had no desire to truly hurt her. Neither did Wolverine, but Logan underestimated the influence he had over his other side.

Betsy tensely monitored his mind while Remy gently pushed and prodded his emotions. Both knew that they weren't quite out of the clear yet. Ororo knew that the worst of it was over, but didn't bother discouraging them. She needed to focus on Logan, and he needed to focus on her. Ororo felt their outrage as she stretched her internal static shield to cover Logan's mind and force them out.

Confusion was the strongest emotion swirling in Logan's mind as his panting soon became sputtering gasps, then shock and shame as those gasps quickly became wrenching full-body sobs.

He didn't speak, but inside he was screaming. _What did I **do **to you_? !"

Ororo shook her head, stroking his cheek lightly. "You didn't hurt me," she told him out loud.

_I JUST TRIED TO **KILL **YOU! !_ He collapsed on top of her, shaking violently. Partly from exhaustion, partly from despair, and partly from anger at himself.

She framed his face and made him look at her. There were no tears in his eyes, and somehow that made her heart ache all the more for him.

"You were never going to kill me," she told him, her voice level. More than compassion, he needed an anchor of calm to latch onto. That's what she needed to be for him, and that's what she'd give him. "YOU WERE UPSET, AND YOU WERE THROWING BLAME, AND YOU WERE ATTACKING ME, BUT I *KNOW* YOU."

_You don't know_, he told her, shaking his head as he struggled to get his breathing under control. _That monster_… _was **me**_.

"A part of you," she corrected. "But I trust you. **All** of you."

"Why," he managed to choke out loud.

"Why do _you_ trust _me_," she countered.

"Because I love you," he answered without hesitation. And he said it in such a matter-of-fact way that Ororo had to smile a little. It was the same way he'd tell someone that the earth was round, or that the sky was blue.

She planted a small kiss on the corner of his mouth, just enough to distract him from his thoughts. "After all this time, do you still not see that I love you just as much?"

She saw a spark of that soul-consuming love in his hazel eyes before he closed them and took a deep breath. A large part of her _needed_ to know what was going through his mind in that instant, but she forced herself to stay out.

He surprised her by rapidly gathering his self control and locking away his emotions. She wasn't sure she approved, but they really had no other choice at the moment. And she had no room to be critical of that since she did it all the time.

"What do we do now," he asked, his voice a bit hoarse.

"Everyone else knows what they can do to help. You and I are going to help Betsy with finding Kendall and possibly Victor using Cerebro. That'll give us the chance to rest _and_ help at the same time." She didn't need to mention that Emma needed rest; he could smell the lingering scent of her exhaustion and near death from the other side of the door.

With that, Ororo stood herself up and helped Logan stand as well. The telepath and empath were still lingering outside the door to monitor Logan's mind, but Ororo mentally waved them off. If anything, he needed some time alone. He wasn't a ticking bomb.

When he seemed to have a manageable hold on his emotions, they opened the doors to the hall, and found only a fraction of the people that had occupied the room. Among them was Ruby, standing so close to Remy that she was practically on top of his shoes and looking between Ororo and Logan hesitantly. When her eyes met Ororo's, she quickly looked away and stared down at her feet.

"Oh, honey," Ororo cooed as she pulled the toddler into her arms. Ruby was afraid that that she'd upset Ororo and Logan somehow, and that their anger was somehow pointed at her. _We're not mad at you_, Ororo said inside her mind.

After a few moments she hiccupped and glanced at Logan out of the corner of her eyes, glassy with unshed tears. "'M sorry I lost Kenny," she mumbled shamefully.

Beside her, Ororo felt Logan recoil as though he'd been slapped. "I…" Logan shook his head, staring at Ruby for a long moment before taking her out of Ororo's arms and holding her the way he did his own daughter. He'd held them this way to chase away nightmares, to soothe injured egos, to embarrass them, and to make everything all better. Ruby didn't flinch away, and in fact clung tighter to Logan than she had to Ororo as she let tears spill over. Logan said nothing, only continued shaking his head.

From the physical proximity of their minds, Ruby was able to read what the gesture meant; don't be sorry.

"B-But," she hiccupped, "I w-wasn't watching – "

He drew his head back and looked straight into the child's eyes, his tone and expression calm but firm. "No. You didn't do anything wrong." This statement seemed to lift an immense weight off of her shoulders, and as Logan held her she fell asleep in under a minute.

Emma avoided looking Logan in the eye as he handed Ruby over, her thoughts a mix of anger at what he'd said about her and regret because in the back of her mind she felt mildly responsible.

Though her exhaustion was to the bone, she found the strength to nestle Ruby safely in her arms before turning to leave. Logan spoke, halting her. "It wasn't true," he told her. "What I said about you, I mean."

Emma turned and looked him over. Ororo and Betsy had only moments to feel anxious before Emma nodded, easily accepting his apology. "You weren't yourself," she told him, and with that went back up to her room to rest.

Logan took a shaky breath and Ororo lightly brushed her fingers against his. "You _have_ to know that we'll find her," she murmured encouragingly in his ear. "Have faith in that."

He nodded and they began making their way down the hall towards Cerebro. Distracted as she was by everything that was happening, it took Ororo a few steps to realize that the light pressure at her side was Logan leaning against her as they walked side by side.


	8. Plotting

**So this update is... a year and a half late? I can't even... This whole "life" thing is more complicated than I thought. I'll leave it at that, because I've found that excuses are tedious. To those of you who've waited, here's a reward for your patience. To those of you that have given up on this story, I certainly don't blame you because I considered it more than once.**

**It also occurs to me that if you've stopped reading then you're probably not reading this now... So now's as good a time as any to shut up.**

**SuniGyrl, love you lots for putting up with me! sundes2013, thank you for that extra little push!**

* * *

><p><em>The man on the other end nervously cleared his throat. "Well, it's like… We, uh, think we may have kidnapped the wrong… Well, not the child that we meant to – "<em>

_Victor felt his lip curl up in slight annoyance. "That's a dumb move," he drawled. "Do you even know who's kid you have?"_

"_Pretty sure the chick said that the girl's parents are called Storm and Wolverine…"_

"_No shit?!" Victor exclaimed before he could stop himself._

"_Uh, apparently. You know them?"_

_Victor held the phone away and covered his mouth to muffle the sound of his nearly giddy laughter._

He wouldn't go so far as to say that he had been bored out of his mind when he'd received that call, but the fact that he had decided to hear out the request of the amateur kidnapper meant that he certainly wasn't _busy_.

The fool had babbled incoherently for most of the conversation, stringing together useless information and tripping over his words in an effort to make sense. Patience wasn't in Victor's nature – unless it pertained to the hunt (and even then, the bloodlust tended to go to his head and he occasionally jumped the gun) – but he'd surprised himself by waiting on the phone while Dennis or Danny tried to sort out that one marble rolling around inside his head.

And luckily, this had turned out to be an opportunity too good to let slip by.

Now on his way to an apartment complex in downtown Rochester, Victor was glad that he hadn't hung up the phone the first time the man had said, _"Um, if that makes sense…"_

Victor was nearly gleeful enough to rub his hands together. The Runt's cub! Domesticity must have made Jimmy _horribly_ lazy if a couple of humans had managed to take his own blood and lived to tell the tale!

And that firecracker weather witch he called his mate? Where the hell had she been during all this? Apparently home life wasn't suiting them quite so well, and Victor could only imagine how much it must _burn_ them to know that they could save an entire city but not their own kid.

He obviously didn't know the whole story, but he had to assume that the cub's parents were out looking for it _by now_. Not that it mattered, the damage was done. The fact that these stooges had the time to contact Victor meant that they hadn't been monitoring their child close enough. They managed to hide the kid away, at least for a while.

Victor knew he wouldn't ever reproduce. But if he did, and if he were to then raise the child, hell would freeze over before he let _anyone_ close enough to lay a finger on his offspring.

As he made his way inside the apartment building, he briefly glanced up at a child yelling out the window. He shook his head, his gut telling him that this wasn't a random noisy child, but that it was Jimmy's and that those idiot kidnappers were letting it lean out the window and scream for help to its heart's content. City people were used to noise of all kinds, but that didn't mean that they'd put up with that shit for an extended period of time. Fifteen minutes, tops, before someone called the cops to complain about the noise, at the _very _least.

And that just wouldn't do. He wanted _Jimmy_ to find them.

Or maybe even the goddess!

Feeling the heavy weight in his coat pocket, he decided that he _definetely_ wanted the goddess to find them too.

He wanted to sit back and watch the fireworks, or possibly throw himself into them. He didn't want the fuzz to bust in and stop the fun before it got started!

Stopping at the specified door, he did his best to exude an aura that said, _You hired me because I am lethal and will live up to all the horrible rumors about me, _while also saying, _You can trust me and I absolutely won't kill you if this becomes too much of a headache. Even if you deserve it._

That last bit wasn't a _complete _lie; while it would be much more fun to sit back and watch Jimmy kill them (and maybe even the witch too, if given the right initiative), but that was only if it turned out that they indeed had Jimmy's kid.

If they were dumb enough to kidnap the child that they hadn't targeted, it was possible that they only _thought_ they had Jimmy's kid. They probably didn't know who the hell's kid they had! In that case, this trip would just be another boring (though profitable) exercise in cleaning up someone else's dumbass mistake.

Before he could raise his arm to knock on the right door, it swung open and Victor was eagerly welcomed inside.

Humans. No instincts.

Victor stepped right into the living room of the apartment and inhaled. Three males, and a young one. He almost chuckled with excitement. He didn't see the kid anywhere, but that fresh-field-of-grass smell that was his brother's signature mutant scent was indisputably in the air. His excitement was dampened with a little disappointment, however; Seriously, how had his little brother and his apparent mate become complacent enough to allow their own child to be stolen by these stooges?!

The two humans that had ushered him into the apartment looked harmless enough; a taller, skinnier man (_Until I get a name that I probably won't remember,_ he thought, _I'll call you Thing One_) and a shorter, more muscular man (_And Thing Two_). And in strolled a man that was in between, with intelligent eyes and an average physique.

Victor could lay them all out in about half a second, so he knew his little brother would make short work of them. The thought of little Jimmy storming into this very room, his face red with anger and steam practically coming out of his ears as he killed these humans and bathed in their blood pulled Victor into a fit of giggles that he couldn't contain. Every pulse in the room spiked and suddenly the fear in the air was so potent that he was almost choking on it.

He got himself under control before the humans came to their senses and asked him to leave. "Sorry," he said, hunching his shoulders to appear a little more… demure. "Delayed reaction to a joke." Wouldn't hurt for them to think that he was a bit slow.

They all nodded silently, trading nervous glances with each other. _Oh, hell,_ Victor thought tiredly. He'd seen _rabbits_ that were less skittish – which was kind of funny since even _they_ wouldn't be stupid enough to invite him into their dens. He pitched his voice just a little bit higher and less threatening. Wasn't he nice to go to such trouble to put the queasy humans at ease?

"Is that the kid making all that racket? I could hear it from almost a block away." They didn't really need to know that from that distance, Victor had assumed it was someone getting mugged in an alley.

The one who'd just come in – Dustin, he assumed – tugged at his short black hair in frustration. "That little demon hasn't shut her mouth since she woke up!" he seethed. "I think I ruptured an eardrum trying to get her to calm down!"

Judging by the noise that was coming from down the hall, Victor wasn't sure that was an exaggeration.

"Anyway, I'm Davis." He started to extend his hand, then seemed to think better of it when he caught sight of Victor's claws. He smoothly diverted his hand and gestured to the other two men, as though that had been his initial intention. "These are my brothers, Lex and Hoyt. Also the idiots that grabbed the wrong girl."

Victor threw them another glance, purely for effect, before shrugging. It wasn't his place to judge their stupidity; people from all walks of life thought they could hack it as criminals. He wasn't interested in the sad story of their road to crime.

"Well, first things first," Victor announced. "If we don't get her to quiet down, the police will be all over this place. People around here may know that there's no such thing as peace and quiet, but we've only got about ten minutes before someone gets pissed enough to file a noise complaint."

"And she's been howling for twenty minutes," Davis moaned, gripping his own head like a vice.

Victor gave him a slick smile that made his pulse skyrocket. "Let me see what I can do. I'm actually quite good with kids." Well, not really. But he'd raised the runt without killing him – attempts notwithstanding. That had to count for something.

Davis swallowed hard and pointed down the hall, keeping a good ten feet away from Victor as he moved past. Victor tried not to roll his eyes as he went to see the kid. Honestly, how did stooges like these get to be in business of kidnapping? They couldn't know for sure that Victor was trustworthy. He did his damndest to come off as trustworthy, but they didn't know him from any Joe Blow on the street. He could be any number of nefarious things – an undercover cop, a homicidal maniac, a pedophile… How could they possibly know? _Shit, humans are dumb creatures!_

Well, maybe not dumb so much as selfish. They were out of options, or else they wouldn't have called him. They were clearly afraid of him, but didn't give a damn about the child if they were just going to let him go back and see the kid unsupervised.

Except for one. Despite the fear that was rolling off of him in potent waves, Hoyt was right behind Victor as he went in to see the kid. Victor's… notice of him increased. He certainly wasn't going to become a problem, but he would be the one to notice something out of place before his brothers. Victor pretended not to notice that he was being watched so as not to scare the human even more.

He opened the door at the end of the hall to find a decent looking bedroom. While the rest of the apartment had only the bare necessities, this room looked like it could belong to any child in America. A bed filled with stuffed animals against the wall, a TV in the corner, a small table against another wall covered in blank paper and crayons…

The child, a young girl, had her back to him. She was standing on a small chair and had her head stuck out the window as she wailed tirelessly. Victor closed the door behind him (in Hoyt's face, whatever) and struggled not to laugh too loudly; not because the sight was ridiculous – though it was, a little – but because it was actually pretty smart of her. Like he'd told the stooges, if the alarm and desperation in her voice failed to attract attention, the sheer volume would.

_Imagine that,_ he thought as he managed to get this amusement under control. _A mutant child with more brains that three human men._

When it was clear that she wasn't going to stop anytime soon, Victor strolled over and gently tapped her shoulder. Her shouting ceased immediately and she whipped her head around to stare at him, the beads on her braids clinking softly. The smell of saline and dried tracks of salt running down her cheeks made her seem impossibly small, but a sound that could only be a warning growl (from a three year old girl!) bubbled in her throat and she glared at him in challenge.

What little intimidation she had managed from that was quickly diminished by a meek hiccup not five seconds afterwards.

He couldn't help himself this time; he threw his head back and laughed harder and louder than he had in years. _Well damn_, he thought. He had three full grown men nearly pissing their pants just talking to him, but this frail little toddler took one look at him and decided she was ready to throw down! He laughed so hard that he was actually struggling to breathe, and the rest of the humans barged in, standing in the doorway and looking between Victor and the brat.

When Victor got himself under control, he looked down to see that amber eyes were locked on his. Jimmy's amber eyes. _Definitely my brother's brat._

He backed up appropriately and let her look him over with eyes that were sharp and predatory despite her age. She was looking for danger or potential weakness. Well, he doubted that she actually _knew_ what she was looking for, but her instincts were telling her to look, and she was following without question.

The only explanation for how they had grabbed this girl and not the right one was that they hadn't known what the kid looked like to begin with, so they'd just grabbed _someone_. It was such a ludicrous way to go about kidnapping that it wasn't even funny. It was a good way to get yourself killed…

… and, incidentally, the girl's parents were probably on the way.

This time, a picture of Jimmy's mate going ape shit popped into his mind and he chuckled. Victor could just picture her covered in a spray of blood and trying to reach for the girl. She'd probably shrink away from her mother in horror, which was sure to make her whole world shatter! And wouldn't it just drive her insane if the girl ran to Victor for comfort instead…

Victor stopped laughing. It was deadly quiet now that his chuckles had ceased, but Victor only heard the gears in his head turning.

There was no doubt in his mind that Jimmy and the goddess would be coming for the girl; the man was ridiculously possessive, and though he'd only met her a handful of times, the goddess seemed to be as well. There would be no bargaining with Jimmy, not with their lives. If they handed over the kid quickly, they'd die quickly. If not, then… they'd die not-so quickly. Though it seemed that his brother had become domestic, he felt confident that his red rage would kick in as soon as he found the kid, and there would be no stopping Wolverine.

The goddess was an unknown variable. She certainly had it in her to kill them, but he got the feeling she would choose to take the high road; bring the fools to the police (or whatever it was that heroes did) and see to it that they were unable to harm her child or others ever again. Then again, everyone had their breaking point. Victor was nothing if not a master of exploiting vulnerabilities.

This new twist in his plan would work so much better if she arrived _first_. He would need to throw off Jimmy somehow to ensure that if he did arrive first, the girl wouldn't be there to claim and he would have to keep searching. But how much information did they have to go on? Idiots that grabbed the wrong girl were sure to leave behind a wealth of evidence, and the only way they could possibly know that this was Jimmy's whelp was if they had talked to someone.

Someone who now knew that they had the girl.

_This keeps getting better._

But, luckily for Victor, the great thing about idiots was that they were eager to listen and easy to fool.

"So," Hoyt asked from the doorway, "is it, uh… the right kid?"

The girl still had the hiccups, and Victor absently passed her a glass of water that had been sitting on the small table before he opened his mouth to answer. But Lex beat him to it.

"Certainly looks like their brat," Lex said. When Victor looked at him questioningly, he explained. "I looked them up online when we found out who they were. Only shaky camera phone videos of anything interesting like fights, but they have some kind of weird promo clips on the X-Men site." He eyed the glass of water that Victor was offering the girl with clear distrust. "I'm a little _concerned_ about all the creative stuff Storm managed to do when she claims all she does is control weather."

"Right now, I think we should be more concerned about whether or not the brat can do any of that stuff," Davis muttered.

"She's far too young to have any powers," Victor assured them. He nudged the glass at the girl a bit more insistently and after a few more hiccups, the girl snatched the glass and chugged the water, likely dehydrated from all of her crying.

Victor didn't feel it necessary to mention that powers usually manifested in situations of high stress and that it wasn't impossible for one as young as her to develop them early as a means of survival. Victor was hoping, however, that that wouldn't be necessary. "And this is their daughter, no doubt about it. I have a nose for these things." He said it in a casual tone as he lightly dragged a claw down the slope of his nose, fighting not to cackle when all of their hearts fluttered nervously (funny, the girl simply narrowed her eyes at him and leaned away a little). Lex visibly shivered and took a few steps back, and Victor lightened his tone, retracting his claws. "But you know, you might be better off if I stayed here. I told you over the phone, you may recall, that I already know quite a bit about the Wolverine. More than a website can tell you, certainly."

Davis nodded, cracking his knuckles nervously.

Victor made direct eye contact with him, to get this point across. "I can honestly tell you that he'll be here in no time."

Hoyt shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "What… _here_, here?!" he asked, pointing to the ground for emphasis.

"Well, not in the next five minutes," Victor responded, fighting the urge to add _dumbass _to the end of that statement. "But he'll find his way here, I guarantee it."

"What's-her-name did say he'd be hunting us," Lex mumbled. "And claws like that aren't for barbecue..."

"Well, what?" Davis demanded. "Is he following psychic energy? Can he see the kid's _aura_?!"

Victor rolled his eyes. "He's probably linked your scent to his missing kid's and is following that."

Lex shrugged, glaring at Davis. "Seems legit. There's something _animal_ about that guy."

"Fuck," Davis hissed.

Victor turned and gave him disapproving look. "Please," he said, motioning to the girl. "She's a growing child. What if that ends up being her first word?"

"Already know that one," the girl said quietly. Everyone fell silent and looked at the girl.

"Is that right?" Victor asked with a raised brow.

She puffed out her chest instead of shrinking back. "Sometimes daddy thinks I'm not listening when he talks to himself or to auntie Emma. Uncle Remy says words like that are 'col-la-ter-al'."

The three brothers remained silent, staring at the girl. Victor inhaled deeply and pressed his lips together, looking at the ceiling in an attempt to hold in his amusement. If all kids were this entertaining, he could see why so many people decided to have them.

Lex was gaping at her. "She spoke!" he finally exclaimed.

"I do that sometimes," the girl muttered.

_If I'm not careful, I may fall in love with this child,_ Victor thought.

Lex was about _this_ close to sneering at the girl, but turned to Victor instead. "So what are you suggesting we do? You think we should just clear out when Wolverine gets close by? Will he just let it go if he finds the kid but not us?" He sounded (rightly) skeptical.

_Not likely,_ Victor thought. He'd hunt them down and skin them alive for leaving her unattended, at the very least. He would have no way of knowing if she'd been poisoned or abused in any way before their departure, and that would probably scare the hell out of him. Still, it wasn't a stupid question.

Victor tilted his head to the side as though turning that suggestion over in his mind. "He's not one to let things go so easily," he said. "He'll want to know that she's been well cared for, at least."

"So we should try to negotiate with him," Lex suggested tiredly.

_Before he inevitably kills you?_ "It might be a good idea."

"Let's not forget about Storm, whoever that is," Davis cut in. "The woman on the phone made it sound like that was the girl's mother. Should we be worried about her?"

Victor pretended to think about that as well, silently acknowledging that THIS must be the reason that Davis was the head of their little operation. Too bad this brief flash of intelligence was too little too late.

"I'll admit I don't know her quite as well, but she's a self-proclaimed hero. I don't think she'll kill you, but you'll go away for the rest of your days if she gets here first." _Or I'll get to her first and then my plan can __**really **__build steam…_

"Okay," Davis said with a nod, furiously typing into his phone. "Not the best overall outcome, but certainly the better out of those two. So we worry about Wolverine. Will money mean anything to him? Or… should we maybe just ask for our lives in exchange for the kid?"

If Jimmy was still the same boring runt he had always been, money wouldn't mean a damn thing to him. But that didn't mean that it was worthless to Victor too. While chaos erupted around them – the intensity of the chaos entirely dependent upon which parent arrived first – Victor could stash whatever money they planned on giving to Jimmy for collection later. "I'd suggest having some money ready and waiting, just in case," he said in a contemplative tone. "It couldn't hurt your chances."

Davis nodded and turned to Lex. "Lex, go withdraw some money from the bank. Few thousand, you think?" He glanced back at Victor for approval.

Victor shrugged. "Your call. The more, the better. Like I said, it couldn't hurt."

Davis nodded again before turning away and walking back into the living room. "This seems like a pretty cut and dry mission, Lex. You think you can find your way to the right bank before you screw something up?"

The murderous look that Lex wore as he too left the room was hilarious. "Hope I don't scratch the Jag on this 'cut and dry' mission," he said carelessly as the apartment door slammed behind him.

"Hoyt…"

"I'm on it," Hoyt said eagerly, his relief evident the farther he got from Victor.

"And why don't you remind him that this isn't a time to be fucking around!" Davis hollered from the other room.

Victor glanced down at the child, who hardly batted an eye at his language. "You weren't kidding about your daddy talking like that," he said quietly. Ordinarily, he would've thought that the kid just didn't understand, but those eyes were a bit too intelligent for complete and total ignorance.

And that was before she'd opened her mouth, effectively banishing all doubt.

Victor shrugged to himself. "Least he hasn't lost what few edges he has left."

Davis sighed heavily as he reappeared in the threshold of the child's room, leaning against the doorframe and suddenly looking extremely uncomfortable. "So we… What? Just, uh, wait for this guy to get here?"

Victor made a face, as though to suggest that he was second guessing himself. "I don't know if it's such a good idea to stay here with the girl…"

Davis frowned, motioning to the door his brothers had just walked through. He had the gall to look annoyed. "You just told Lex – "

"I told him not to pick up and leave," Victor corrected, not liking that tone. Those brothers of his might accept the way Davis talked to them, but this adventure would come to a short and violent end for Davis if he ticked Victor off.

"Now, you're free to do whatever you think is best," Victor offered, "but here's what I'm thinking: What if he gets here and he knows that you've got the kid here with you? What's to stop him from killing you and taking the brat and the cash?" Davis nodded thoughtfully, thinking it over so deeply that his anxiety began to ebb away.

"But let's say," Victor continued, "you were to move her to a different location, but stay here to wait for him. Once he gets here you could negotiate with him, throw him the cash or whatever, and give him the address of where she is. He tries to kill you? Tell him you've got a guy with the girl that will whisk her someplace else if he tries to kill any of you. He'll leave you all alone, go off to get her and you can all beat feet before he has the chance to pick her up and turn around to come back for you."

In reality, Jimmy would probably tear them all limb from limb before they got the chance to utter a word. And, if he was lucky, the goddess would arrive first and Victor would get the chance to test his new gift from Trask and enrage his brother even further.

This fool had struggled to order his thoughts to tell Victor the situation over the phone, so there was no way in hell he'd have enough forethought to see any of the many reasons that such a plan might not work.

For instance, if they were willing to believe that Jimmy could track _their_ scent, why wouldn't they assume that he could pick up the girl's scent from the apartment and follow it to her new location without needing any kind of address from them? Or, assuming they knew he was prone to temper, wouldn't they be worried that he'd just try to torture the information out of them?

_If only everyone had a mind like mine,_ Victor thought a tad wistfully.

"Meanwhile," Victor went on, "I sit and play nice with the kid so she doesn't get bored. Her dad comes in, we'll probably have a little chat" – he couldn't resist grinning at that – "and that's the end of everything."

Davis swallowed hard at the look on Victor's face, but did a damn good impression of someone trying to contain their fear. "You think that'll work," he asked. "You think he'll wait long enough to hear us out if he catches us _without_ the kid?"

Victor nearly gave him a surprised look. Perhaps more than just one flash of intelligence…

"But," Davis nervously cracked his knuckles again, "I guess… it's better than the alternative."

_Ah, __**there's**__ that intellect!_ Victor was willing to bet that Davis had no earthly idea what 'the alternative' was. Stupid. He was choosing to put his absolute faith in someone that he didn't know.

Oh well. He'd learn. In fact, it would likely be the last lesson he'd get.

Davis' phone began ringing and he answered it, leaving Victor and the girl staring at each other. Those amber eyes snapped back to him and that warning growl rumbled in her small throat.

Victor knew that it wasn't bravery that prompted that response, but fear. The only reason the girl wasn't shrinking away in true terror was because he hadn't yet given her a reason to.

Victor crouched down closer to her level. The kid was tiny, but he wasn't surprised; Logan hadn't grown past five feet tall until he was nearly seventeen. He retracted his claws to a less threatening length and held his hand out to her, palm up. She leaned away from him with a distrustful look, but it was plain that she was curious. Body language was something that she would be able to process better, because they were filtered by instincts, whereas words were processed by her young mind.

When he didn't move towards her, she slowly leaned forward and gave his hand a cautious sniff. He couldn't help the grin that surfaced at that. She was _unmistakably_ her father's daughter. If he wanted her to at least be at ease with him, he needed to act… nice.

A distasteful thought. Under any other circumstances, it was a thought that never would've been acknowledged. But Victor Creed wasn't opposed to laying it on thick with a little acting, especially when the game was afoot. Sometimes it could be fun, and this girl seemed far from boring. "What's your name, cub?" he asked in a soft voice, free of any hidden threat.

She looked up at him, her eyes assessing. Her instincts were telling her whether or not he was safe. She sniffed his hand again and then glared over at the door, where Davis was still on the phone but watching in fascination from the doorway. She frowned at him and looked back up at Victor. He could already see in her eyes that she'd decided that he was safer than the three stooges. "Kenny," she mumbled.

Victor raised an eyebrow. "You've got a boy's name, Kenny."

The girl leaned away from him, her expression sour. "_Kendall_," she snapped.

"That's a little better." Victor smiled, leaving his mouth closed so that his fangs wouldn't startle her. "I'm your Uncle Victor," he told her.

Her eyes widened at that, but she didn't look frightened. Either Jimmy had told her about him – which he _really_ doubted – or 'uncle' was simply a familiar word to her. Likely it called forth memories of her home and people that she could trust. Victor fit into that category to her now, and he wasn't misplaced.

Victor sure as hell wasn't a kid person, but he wouldn't hurt her as long as she behaved herself as much as a toddler could be expected to. Right now, killing her wouldn't benefit him in any way.

Her parents, however, were another story entirely. Not only was Victor going to get a good fight, but this could actually turn out to be quite entertaining _months_ down the road. Logan could be a hard-ass, ready-fire-aim kind of guy when occasion called, but more often then not he was a sap. And his mate was a hero and an idealist, so this kind of emotional damage had the potential to push them both over the edge.

Victor could just imagine the look on their faces if they barged in to find her squealing happily while in her uncle's arms.

Money couldn't buy a moment like _that_.

_I've been bored for __**far**__ too long._

It might take them a while to get there, but Victor was prepared to wait.

* * *

><p>"<em>You gotta pay attention, Kenny," Uncle Remy said, kneeling down so that he was closer to her height. "If Ruby hid your doll, she's not going to tell you where it's at."<em>

"_But I __**know**__ she did," Kendall insisted, frowning grumpily. "She said my daddy isn't a real wolverine and she laughed at me and __**she took it!**__" She kicked at Uncle Remy's shoe because he looked like he wanted to laugh at her. "__**Not funny!**__"_

"_I know she took it too, ma patite." He rested a hand on her head to calm her. "But Uncle Remy ain't the one who hid it. You gotta catch her in a lie to find where she put it."_

_Kendall sighed. "If mommy hadn't washed it I could just __**sniff**__ for it! It smelled like me but now it smells like the whole house!"_

"_What? Clean?"_

_Kendall narrowed her eyes at Remy, who looked like he wanted to laugh again. "I smell like a princess," she said in a snooty tone, nose in the air as she pushed his hand off the top of her head._

"_Well, you can't sniff it out, that's why Ruby gotta tell you where to find it."_

"_You just said she ain't gonna."_

"_You have to make her tell you, and I'm gonna teach you how."_

_Kendall clapped excitedly. "Like how Kitty taught me how to put someone in a headlock!"_

"_You can't do that, you'll get in trouble."_

"_Nuh-huh, 'cause Aunt Kitty taught me."_

"_You remember that trick Nightcrawler taught you about kicking cans off someone's head?"_

_Kendall nodded eagerly. "Uh-huh."_

"_And you remember what happened when you tried it on Ethan Stark?"_

_Kendall's smile faded. Mommy and Daddy hadn't let her eat any sweets or watch any TV for a long time. "No," she mumbled._

_Remy laughed. "It's okay, because Uncle Remy's gonna teach you somethin' that won't get you in trouble. Matter fact, might come in handy some day. You gotta watch. Really watch…"_

* * *

><p>Kendall watched 'Uncle Victor' carefully. So far, he hadn't lied to her. She wasn't sure if she wanted to trust him. He was mostly better than the other men that were here with her, but something about him was… <em>dark<em>.

The bulky man hadn't been so bad. He'd carried her into the room and had tried to give her sweets. He kind of reminded her of Uncle Peter…

But he _wasn't_ Uncle Peter! She didn't know anyone! She didn't know where she was! She didn't know anything!

_Mommy is coming,_ she told herself. _Daddy too. _That, she knew. They would come and they would beat up all these strange men and then they'd go home and maybe she could stay in their room tonight so she didn't have to sleep by herself.

All she had to do was wait.

"How are you my uncle," she asked.

"Well, cub, your dad is my brother."

She watched him carefully, tried to remember everything that Uncle Remy had taught her about watching for lies. She hadn't been very good that day that Ruby had stolen her stuffed animal, but she'd gotten better when she started watching adults.

Adults lied _a lot_.

But Uncle Victor wasn't lying. Her daddy was his brother. And he'd called her cub without being told to. Cub was pretty close to pup, wasn't it? And her daddy called her pup all the time.

"Does my daddy know I'm here?"

Uncle Victor tilted his head to the side thoughtfully. "Not exactly, but he's looking for you. He'll find you here before you know it."

Kendall nodded. She knew that already, but she didn't know if he knew. "My mommy is coming too."

Victor smiled. "I bet she's on her way right now."

"What will happen when they get here?"

Uncle Victor grinned wide and his eyes seemed to get brighter. She got goose bumps and scooted away so that he wasn't close enough to reach her. "Your parents and I are going to… talk."

Ah-ha, she saw it! That darkness! The reason that she _didn't_ trust him! _That_ was a lie!


End file.
